Realizing
by Fiction's RocketMan
Summary: Bass realizes something, and he's not too sure at first on how to define what it is or why. A couple of faces that he did not expect to ever befriend him try to teach the meaning behind all this. He also gains some support from a certain Doctor Light number, who seems to be impacting possibly the most. A little bit of BassxRoll later on. Rated T for certain words & subject matter.
1. Chapter 1: Intro-Prologue

**A/N: Howdy there! Welcome to my first piece of work for the website. Now, you should know that this isn't JUST my first work on the site; it is also my first fan-fiction EVER. I have had this idea and a couple others for awhile, but this is my first ever attempt of actually writing and showing others a story based upon an already existing franchise. Be told that that does not mean I didn't plan it out yet! I got the basic idea of the plot already and I'm pretty sure I know what to start writing for some later chapters and where in the story to end at specific chapters, however that does not excuse me away from the fact that this IS my first ever writing of fan-fiction that I thought through, and not counting the stupid fan-fics I wrote as a kid for obvious reasons.**

**Anyways, this is just the introduction chapter to the basic plot of the story, so I warn you, it is short, but you should still read it so later parts make sense. Please, do some R&R for this fic; that would be appreciated, sirs and ma'ams. Enjoy!**

**Oh yeah! I should mention this:**

_**Italics**_** are thoughts.**

**Thank you.**

**End of A/N.**

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Chapter 1: Intro/Prologue

Bass had always had the negative side of things as his normal nature, as it was what he was after all made for. He thought about his decisions a few times, but not much; not even when his old man gave him Roboenza.

However, he's thought of something; something after his recent mission with Wily and them: they went over to Dr. Light's laboratory to, in Albert's words, "take any robot, even Mega Man if you can, and give our enemy a bit of trouble for when we let loose our next batch of eight DWNs on the world! Oh-ho! That'll get 'em riled up I bet!"

Maybe not the smartest thing in the world to come out of the doctor's mouth, but of course they did it: Bass, Wily in his saucer, and a few of the usual fighting units. They actually got pretty close to even capturing Rush and Beat, if it weren't for Rock and a self-defense system inside of Auto that none of them ever expected to exist inside of him.

But nonetheless, they got Roll and two robots that Light had just completed to soon be shipped out for industrial-related purposes, Flora Man and Circuitry Man.

When all of them got back to the most recent of skull fortresses, Bass was wondering; he was having one of those conscious, self-aware sort of moments again. He tried to not think of it, but he always feels difficulty in trying to keep him from considering his decisions once they come up to the surface to get his attention.

To the ocean they went, diving into the most well-placed and least-known of every other once existing fortresses and castles. Bass helped put the two new robots from the Light lab into the underwater lair's equivalent of electric chairs in a way, and have Roll watch in another strapped chair, but without the "execution" part in it; this being due to the intentions not entirely planned yet for this early one of the Dr. Light numbers, and of course to enforce a partial bit of eye-torture.

"Alright," Wily says. "Get ready!" He looks at the lever in his hand that was going to get rid of all previous code within the duo's systems. It was here though unfortunately that Bass began to just start feeling regret in him, and a bit confused as to why he feels like he should be ashamed of something that's usually so normal and even dreamlike to him.

And then, Wily accidentally flipped not only the switch that struck thunder to Flora Man and Circuitry Man, but also the one in Bass' brain right at the second that the two were being zapped of their original programming. He began feeling like a few gears were now grinding with more than just his 'yes sirs' and 'I am the best robot,' but with wonder and emotion in some sort; with his "heart," like something was wrong.

And he was too late when it happened, because now there's a scared Roll and two of his own kind that were essentially Roll's siblings having been drained of the emotion and thought process from them, leaving them empty for Wily to install whatever information he wanted to add to the once automatons.

Only a single line crossed him, _oh… shit..._

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**A/N: Well then, that was the first chapter. Not much to say other than that you should expect the other chapters to be longer than this. I should mention the BassxRoll bits and mentions will not come up until quite a bit later in the story if all goes to plan. Oh! And if you are not the biggest BassxRoll fan, then don't worry; it is not as focused as much as the character development for Bass and some interactions with other characters should be.**

**As a teenager who wants to put his ideas on this site with successful execution of original ****intention, please be kind & leave some respectful R&R on your trail through reading this if you will. If you did, then thank you; it's highly appreciated!**

**End of A/N.**


	2. Chapter 2: New Algorithms

**A/N: Alright then, here's the next one of the bunch! I don't think there's much to say other than that with a combo of having family & friends and also school, it might be a bit of time before the eventual chapter 3. I also want to say that whoever might be reading this, THANK YOU! I really want to express my ideas to others, and doing that here on what is essentially the capital of online fan-fiction, it feels honestly safe enough to do without worrying about people I know in the real world finding out. And for anyone of you who decides to participate your time in making a review, I tip my hat to you and give you a thumbs up in appreciation.**

**In all seriousness, thank you to anyone who would constructively criticize, enjoy, or even just casually read this fan-fic.**

**Now then, onto the second chapter, shall we!**

**End of A/N.**

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Chapter 2: New Algorithms

Bass only feels an 'oh no' sort of feeling of slight dread and angst in him. Wily looks at his own doings, "... great! Now, Bass, send Roll to cell #35-o." Bass stood in his position and stared, thinking. "You know, in the West district. Don't make me bring her there myself; I'd like to start my work on these over here," he points to the lifeless bodies. "Now go!"

"Oh- uh, on it." He took Roll on over, who struggled even out of her restraints. Bass didn't know what to do and how to do it safely without him getting in trouble by either party. "I'm sorry," he says; luckily, Albert wasn't smart enough to install cameras in the entire complex for whatever reason, especially since he prepared for potential prisoners on board.

As they keep moving he whispers again, "I'm sorry." He's not sure if she can hear her, and he's still not too sure why he feels like he needs to say it, but he does. "I'm so sorry."

Still not even a bit certain if she can hear him, or if she's just ignoring him, he says as he regretfully, fidgety, closes the cell door, "I'm… sorry, Roll." He decides to leave, but acts a bit hesitant to look back at her. He believes it's the best that he does it now; she really doesn't want to see him after what he just let happen to her two new brothers. He closes the sliding door, and steps into the hallway.

As he walks, his slow moving, anguish-filled body stops to ask himself, "why did I do that?" Confusion filled him as he moves slower through the hall, looking at the floor, wondering… _why… in the hell… did I do that? Did I feel… sympathy…?_

"Bass!" "Guh- yes?" Wily has his hands behind his back in a commonly seen dramatic stance by him when his high almighty smugness thinks he's come up with the best idea ever, "have you secured Roll?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good! Please, meet a couple of future friends for you..." He has his hand now in a position like he was holding a glass of wine to try to behold his… "creations" as he likes to call them despite not making anything really for them. "The soon-to-be BETTER Flora and Circuitry Men. Get your attention away from the floor and look at them." He looks up and realizes he somehow walked into his master's lab without even staring ahead the entire time and thinking about going there. Maybe it was just instinct to how he normally acts.

"I'd actually like to let you know that their new programming should be ready and inserted by tomorrow morning. And don't worry, I'll let them know that YOU'RE the best robot around, so no need for any possible competition."

The best robot around? Yeah! That's usually how he thought of himself. Why did he even stop thinking that way a few minutes ago? That's how he always felt. He doesn't need to think or care about anyone else but himself, or how else is he supposed to focus on beating Mega Man and being the best mechanical being of them all? At least, it's worked like that for the longest time, but why does it feel so wrong to have that familiar mental state this time?

"Sounds great, doctor." "Excellent." Wily turns to the computer keyboard and types away with his comically sized monitor displaying the many commands to be soon transceived into the husks of wires and circuit boards.

The purple body, Flora Man, had one of those weird modern style, monitor-screen faces, so he couldn't even see a resemblance of life once in that; he looked the most dead. While the fairly large, yellow one, Circuitry Man, has the decent design of eyelids, and could at least look like he was asleep… if it weren't for being attached to cables and all other sorts of doohickeys and whatchamacallits.

_Maybe… maybe that could be it?_ Bass wondered. _Could I be feeling bad for those guys too?_

Hours later…

It was getting close to night and Bass was in his room still thinking about a bunch of questions on what happened in the day.

Eventually, he got to the one that he felt he had to say out loud in order to emphasize it enough, "is this shit healthy?"

With how sudden this whole thing was, he found it a sensible conclusion to ask himself this. But like all the others, he doesn't know the answer.

Then, those feelings came back again, the ones about Roll's general well-being. "Why the hell am I feeling this sympathy crap again?" The part of him that says and decides what to do was getting a bit agitated again as he considered his next choice. Not knowing the reason he believes he needs to, he steps up from his bed, sneaks out of his room, and heads on over to Roll's place of captivity, cell #37-o.

_Thank God these doors are so quiet_, he thinks as he slides past the doorway into the room and looks to the other end where the bars were for her cell.

She was on the flat, small, hung-by-the-wall bed of sorts and even in her system shut down that replicated sleep, she still didn't look like she liked the experience on it very much.

_There's no way she can feel comfortable like that, _Bass decides. _She's shivering._

He comes up with a quick and simple solution and goes back to his room to sneak one of his own sheets from his bed to bring back to her.

He makes sure to carefully lay it on top of her without her noticing or flinching. "Roll, I'm sorry."

Bass noiselessly tiptoes up from the side of her bed and to the other side of the cell-door. As he very slowly closes it to avoid any plausible source of sound, he whispers another time as if she could hear, "I'm… I'm so sorry, Roll."

Bass then walks back and leaves the room and goes straight to his own.

On the way, he hears something in his head, 'Bass, you have nothing to worry about.' And another saying, 'What you're going through is something that we're glad to see.'

_The fuck? I'm hearing voices in my head now?_ Bass is getting seriously worried about what's going on with him and his head. He's not sure how, but he plans on confronting his creator about it in the morning._ But… how will that old man think about what I did for Roll just now? I don't wanna see that shit go down._

In his bed, the robot made of Bassnium, which he still personally had no idea what the hell that is, wondered about how he's feeling towards Roll and the two other Light robots.

_When did I start 'caring' for others beside myself, especially when it comes to those? I swear I'm not thinking straight; maybe this will all clear up by tomorrow when I get a good night's sleep._

He wants to put himself unconscious, but he keeps thinking of the 'sympathy' question and things related; he keeps thinking of how much he feels the need to say sorry for Roll.

_Just do a system shut down._

He thinks of it again.

_Just do a damn system shut down…_

The questions flood further before he eventually comes forth to meeting his own demands.

_JUST DO… a… system… shut down…_

Finally, he was asleep.

He reaches dreamland, but something was... odd. He seemed highly more aware of his surroundings and he remembers everything from the previous day like it was relevant to said dream, but it didn't, not at all. Nothing really felt like the normal unconscious experience of nonsensical events wrapped up by the mind in desperate attempt to make a story before finally waking in the morning. No, it just all wasn't anywhere near that. Bass doesn't feel like he's sleeping, but having no sense of fatigue was enough proof to him that he is.

He sees all white, as well as a couple of figures, one tall and plump, and one smaller and skinnier. Their blurred lines of silhouettes were barely even visible like they were two shadows in a cloud or mist of something.

"He- hello?" Bass asks. Then, as they begin walking very slowly in unison to catch up to him, he hears the words again, "Bass, you have nothing to worry about." "What you're going through is something that we're glad to see."

"Oh God, what the hell," Bass says out loud by accident.

When they finally stepped forward into his view, he sees that not one of them were actually talking, and sees one of them put his hand into the space of air in front of him like a mime and turn some sort of invisible dial that turned it off. Now, it was silent.

"Huh?"

He hears a deeper male voice from the plumper individual, whose matched that of the one that said the beginning of the message in his head earlier, say to him, "Bass, welcome to cyberspace. We'd like to answer a few things for you on the topic of earlier today. We got a lot of explaining to do here, so listen up..."

Bass surely intends to listen carefully...

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**A/N: Okay, you can probably guess who the guys talking to Bass are, but that's not the point in that part of slight, intended suspense. I should say to anyone who is looking forward to the pairing sections of the story, I'm sorry, but that might not start showing up until chapter 4 or more. Chapter 3 will most likely focus mainly on the dream scene that begins at the end of this chapter. Even though it will be a bit before the interactions between the two robots will come into the story, I hope you all will like what I have for this next, and maybe even what I have in it now.**

**Wait, why am I still writing this author's note?! I NEED TO GET ONTO CHAPTER 3 TO HELP OUT YOU, BASSXROLL SHIPPERS, MY ENDANGERED BRETHREN! See ya guys! I'm gonna go and do some typin' on the next chapter. Until then, have a nice day y'all! And good luck on your own stories!**

**End of A/N.**


	3. Chapter 3: The Superego

**A/N: Welcome to the third part of our little story. How long will this be in total? *shrugs* I don't know. Will this be romantic at some frickin' point? Oh yeah!- Well, kinda. It's not the main focus, but it's definitely something that will be obvious when it's mentioned and/or hinted. Basically, I don't want this to get fangirlitis, where it's all that it gets focused on and it becomes really dang annoying. I'm okay when people do it, it's just not what I want this story to be. Seriously, nothing against them, just not what I want this story to be.**

**So, I don't want to say anything else. Does anyone even read these? Maybe, but I shouldn't make a moose-flurping novel out of these. No, just shut up me! See ya guys, I'm gonna go zip my mouth! Happy reading!**

**End of A/N**

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Chapter 3: The Superego

"So, first things first, you would like to know why we're here, don't you?" The question came from the smaller one, around Bass' height.

"S-Sure, why not?" He waits to hear from the two.

"Okay, so, this is going to be somewhat of an… awkward moment maybe as we try to explain why," the tall one says, "but... here it is." He looks to his partner with a bit of hesitation to Bass' possible response to the next statements, but he goes on, "I- We…" He continues, the yellow one, "Circuitry Man and Flora Man… have decided to help you better understand what you're starting to feel."

"... wh- What?"

"This is not BS, after we were… 'killed' in a sense, we found ourselves here in the realm of cyberspace. Not too long after that, we found we could look back into your world like a couple of ghosts by taking in your point of view via your artificial mind."

The purple one starts talking as the Wily bot widens his eyes a tiny bit to some portion of disbelief and confusion, "I know that this itself may be very difficult to understand, but trust us, this is NOT a normal dream, we can't really control you or anything from here in cyberspace, but we could send different signals to your cerebrum: that's what those messages were earlier that you heard. And that's exactly what we are doing now, except in a dreaming state, only now can we interact with you in proper conversation."

The skepticism of the last few sentences that came out of their mouths were probably enough to make him overload should Bass feel any more skeptical about it.

Bass looks to his hands, they feel real; this dream really wasn't like most usual ones, was it? He can feel them touch each other, like he was actually colliding his own synthetic material together to sound a clap.

"We… We understand that you may need a minute or two or ask us some things before we go onto the next topic we want to talk to you about."

The black-helmeted robot stares at the greenish-yellow tint of Circuitry Man's head, then to his pupils, "no, I-I need more answers about this, right now." He keeps talking but gets quieter and quieter as he scrambles for his words, "I… need to understand… what's going on here. What the-. What-... What the fuck?"

"Bass," the yellow one's hand is put on the other's shoulder to try to calm him down, "we can literally see right through you like glass and into your memories and thinking, we're pretty sure what you need is a bit to go over what we just told you here so that it makes sense and you don't go into total shock from the amount of information that we have to pile onto you in the next part of our explanation. Take a minute; we can wait, and we will!" Flora Man nods his head in agreement.

"We'll keep talking in a little bit," is said by the monitor-screen face of Flora Man.

They all look at each other. "It's okay, go sit. You're not used to this kind of thing, Bass."

_Not used to it? The hell's that supposed to mean?_ he wonders. Of course, there's no answer. He agrees to just rest for a second and think over what was just told to him.

Sitting, Bass goes over the things said, wondering whether this is some weird fever-dream or an actual interaction with dead robots from beyond(while in a dream).

_I saw those two guys get…_ Though not entirely relevant, he gets a confusing and sudden thought of the fact that… _I literally just stood there, waited, waited with anticipation, and saw them get… get executed. Why do they- Why would they want to help me in some way?_

He hears, "alright. Forte, my friend, I think you're ready for the next part of what we have to say." Forte? If that alone wasn't enough to prove Bass that these two could really look down far into his memories, he doesn't know what would. He's not even sure when the last time Dr. Wily called him by that name was.

He presses his hands against the ground as he moves up and looks towards Flora Man and Circuitry Man, looking forward to what they have to tell him.

Politely, Bass is asked, "are you ready?"

Bass replies a little harshly, "yes, I just need to know some information about my damn head!"

He usually talks like that, if not worse when he's angry, but then he started feeling sorry again about something.

"Okay, so here we go…" Circuitry Man looks over back to his shorter counterpart while slowly nodding and begins, "Bass, multiple things have happened to you up here," he points to his head, "it's like you have had a dam burst. Someone came over and swung at that son of a gun like a baseball player, and burst it open, now it's flooding everywhere and you're not too sure what to do about it with how surprising the event was. That is exactly what you experienced yesterday."

Circuitry Man looks slightly unsure of what he just said as does Flora Man before the yellow Light robot says "we'd like to put it in those terms, because you have had this deep in you, and it's finally coming out. And it can be very confusing, we know, but it will make so much more sense if you will let us go a bit further to explain it. Again, we know that this can be very stressful with what's going on, so if you need just another minute to yourself for now, we'll understand."

Bass looks somewhat wondersome of what they have to offer, "go on," however feels slightly hesitant.

The robot master of circuitry sighs knowing very well what will be said next, "alright, so, Bass... for the longest time, ever since you were created, ever since you opened your eyes to that wacky-haired old man, you have not known a sense of sympathy or empathy... Not knowing what others feel or think... that's kind of hard to go over because most are naturally using it a lot, and your thoughts were proof that you have that in you too."

"W-Wha... What?"

Circuitry Man gets a slap across the side of his cheek by his counterpart. "You bonehead, that didn't sound comforting!"

He almost let something out to his brother but kept his mouth shut realizing what this would have looked like for the situation. Trying to be professional, Circuitry Man rubs his chin and a light bulb flickers above his head. He moves to his partner's ear. Bass hears whispering for a bit. After indistinct sentences and head nods, they turn back to Bass, seeming more confident than before. "Alright, so," the yellow one lifts his finger, "we decided that using our speech would not help you the best, so we're going to send you back down memory lane for a bit, a few specific ones we'd like you to see, just a few." His one finger transforms into three being held up high as his other hand points to them, "that many to be exact."

"We both think you'll be better interpreting these than hear us talk, so..." Flora Man pauses before Circuitry Man snaps his fingers, "bon voyage!"

Suddenly, all of the ground around the fighting bot turned to slush in a way, and all that was white before was either turning blue or black. He felt the matter behind him somewhere start sinking in like sand in a sifter and turn like a whirlpool. He feels beyond whiplashed from momentum. He turns back to ask for help by the Light robots but they were just observing like they were on a higher platform that him. The ground wasn't climbable, it flowed like liquid, he couldn't escape, and all just came to the center of the spiraling drain with Bass.

He screams, but he doesn't. Nothing really came out. And then, nothing... at all could be perceived anymore. Was he inside of cyberspace anymore? Or did he leave since his disappearance down the opened well? It... didn't seem to be anything of Bass' control anymore. He can't quite feel anything wrong or downright terrifying as before either. Nope, instead, he was relaxed. Like an actual dream-state.

The scenery. A house. A single tint or two of blue. Whatever else was white or a clear window. The sort of setting had a bird chirp by one of these windows, who was complimentary to the color of blue that belonged to the house. The singing brought a smile to one's face, one who was scrubbing a dish from the kitchen sink. "Hello," she said. "What are you doing here, don't you have to take care of your little babies back in the nest?" she teased. She closes her eyes and giggles, and lets herself shimmer a little in the natural light with her red dress and outfit. But for only a moment, for a teleportation sound followed by another brought her face to the lab, as the bird flies away, and she puts the dish down with the rag.

There, in the whir of computers and electronical machines, the familiar and world-famous doctor, Thomas Light, makes way to the robots for assistance and reports of their status. "Doctor, can I help?" she asks out of concern. "Goodness gracious! These damages. Maybe you could help if you don't mind, would you, Roll?" "Not at all!" The darker-armored robot says snarkily, "ha! It was just Ground Man. His drills didn't do too much on me unlike Blue Dweeb over here!" "Hey, you're all tore up here on your buster, Bass." The other one puts his hand on the black and golden robot's arm cannon to show him. "Shut up." "Alright," Dr. Light brings them over to the tables, "now, this shouldn't take too long, but Bass, try to be patient, you need to be worked on." "Says you." His white eyebrows squint in annoyance, "huh," he sighs but says calmly, "Bass, you let Dr. Wily work on you when you need repairs, right?" "... Yes," he says embarrassed. "Then just let me work on this here and you can go blast away in the training room." He smiles to the robot. "Does that sound good?" "Sure, whatever, just get this over with," he replies impatiently and looks away. "You need any help with him, Doctor?" Roll asks. "No, thank you. I think you should go over there where your brother is for now though." He points his screwdriver to the Blue Bomber. "Oh, yes, got it! Don't worry, I'm coming, Rock!" Dr. Light giggles to himself at her constant happy attitude that he wishes Bass could share a bit more of.

An hour passes. Dr. Light is so focused on his craftsmanship of Bass' arm buster that he doesn't notice the sweat forming on his head. Roll comes in, having just finished working on Mega Man a couple of minutes ago, holding some glasses of lemonade. "Need one, Doctor?" she asks politely as usual. "Oh!" Dr. Light says to her surprised but glad. "Why, I didn't even see you come in here. Gosh, I really need a break after this." "It's okay. Drink up if you need it!" "Oh, how can I say no to that smile on your face," he says as he carefully picks one up. "Thank you." She runs over to Mega Man. "Don't worry, I didn't forget you, Big Brother." The still tired Blue Bomber takes one off the tray with an obvious look of thankfulness. "Thanks Roll, I appreciate it." He sips. "Don't mention it. You guys really seemed like you needed it." She moves over back to the table by Dr. Light. "Here," she lifts the tray up to Bass' other available arm, "you want one?" He looks at the glass as if he had a question on his mind. Then he lets out a silent laugh, "really? You think I need that? I can't weaken myself with little stupid treats like that," he says rudely. "How do you expect me to beat him after this is all over between us? The second Wily gets his castle back, I'm dueling him," he points to his rival from the other table, "and I can't soften myself with things like that." Roll looks both slightly disappointed and personally hurt a little by Bass' comment, not wanting to think about them as enemies. That, and just wishing that Bass could appreciate nice offers and other things in life.

"Ah, don't frown because of that. It's alright," Dr. Light says, patting Roll's shoulder. "And don't look too down yourself Bass, because..." he wipes his forehead of the sweat with relief of his work, "we... are... finished!" He takes the tool from the black-armored one's buster and puts it aside. Bass looks at his arm now that he can move it freely again. "Thanks Doc." Bass blinks and widens his eyes. "I m-mean..." he stutters, "uhh-uhmm-" "You're welcome, Bass," Dr. Light manages to chuckle out in Bass' reaction to his own words.

They all start sort of laughing, and then, very gently, it fades out.

Was that anything special to Bass? Not at the time. But is it now? Not too sure yet, but then...

On the same window sill from earlier, a radio, retro-styled and playing at just the middle-ground volume before it was too loud for its listeners, played the simple melody of a certain performer and singer, Buddy Holly, with his words, "everyday, it's a-gettin' closer, goin' faster than a roller coaster! Love like yours will... surely come my hey-way. A-hey! A-hey, hey..." Passing out cards, Roll does, one then one, two then two, three then three, and so on as she hands them out to she and her brother. Bass' feet march into the room at a remark of what sort of music was playing.

"Whatcha doin?" he asks them. "Oh, just a game," she explains, "we didn't think you would be very interested." "What game?" She looks at him with a quick answer, "Rummy." Bass stares at the table. "Card game?" "Mm-hmm!" she answers him. His mouth makes the sound of some smugness or attempt of directly downing them, "cards? I'll never understand you guys. You're weird. No action." He points his buster to the wall. "Nothing to shoot." Bass pretended to point at things with his buster for a while, but then he just stopped, and began to droop his buster down, beginning to think of something different from what he previously said. "Actually, um... is it alright if I join you? I don't really have any other hobbies..." "Of course!" She got up. "Oo! Maybe I can make that hot chocolate for you that I mentioned earlier," she got herself hyped up. "Sure, I guess..." He looks around awkwardly with his introvertedness, "I haven't really had hot chocolate before either..." Roll looks at Bass in a fair amount of surprise. "What? Even at Wily's castle, he doesn't do anything like that?" "... No... not really." "Really? You don't know what you're missing out! Don't worry, I'll make it quick!" she said as she turns to the cabinets. "It's fine, I guess I should learn the rules first." Bass sat down. "So... what does 'rummy' mean?" "Oh," Mega Man starts explaining, "it's sorta related to a rule in the game about each person's deck that I'll probably get to in a minute, but first, let's go over some of the basic stuff. It'll sound complicated, but don't sweat anything; you're first game will feel weird, but you'll understand fast." Mega Man stands and points to bring Bass' attention to the deck and the card facing 'up' in the middle, "this is the-"

Bass moves his elbow as he follows what he's saying but bashes it too hard into Mega Man's mug. With a loud smash, it hits the ground! Bass moves back worriedly, his eyes looking like he had hell to pay. "OH, SHIT!" He stood still. "I'll get some paper towels," Roll said as Mega Man was getting a plastic bag to put the larger broken pieces in and throw away, when he noticed Bass was in the same spot and position as before. "Um, hey," he began, "it's alright. It's nothing too bad or anything you know?" He didn't really respond. "Mmm... I guess you can help if you want. We have a broom over there in the hall closet if you want to get the smaller pieces-" Dr. Light accidentally interrupted Mega Man by almost tripping over running in, breathing heavy, assuming the worst happened and the two got in a fight when he heard Bass scream profanity. "What's... Oh, oh, thank goodness..." he places his hand to his forehead finding nothing of what he assumed. "Heh... here, do you need any help? What can I... here, I'll get a washcloth." "No need, I got it, Doctor," Roll says as she rips too many paper towels for her to carry in her arms from the large roll of them." "Whoa! Careful. I can hold- Here, let me hold some of those," the Doctor said before grabbing some that were out of Roll's control from falling to the floor, trying to keep her from getting overwhelmed. Although the same couldn't really be said for the black-armored one...

He felt like the entire world was watching him to prolong his embarrassment. He was waiting, waiting for a yell, a scream, a mocking of, something from the other three but mostly Dr. Light. He kept waiting, not wanting to move a muscle, fearing that would make it worse and be called back with a 'where are you going?' sort of response from one of them. By now, he's not even sure what he was thinking about at this point. Too many thoughts. Too many possibilities. Too many scenarios for any conceptually plausible punishments to ever occur. That type of familiar trapped feeling? The one that seems like no matter where you go, what you think, or what you say, your fate is inevitable? That's what he felt. Little did he know that there was another pathway out, he just needed to be given a hand along the way.

Pat, that is the sound he heard on his shoulder as he turned around. "Hey, are you okay?" It wasn't visible at first, but after a second of getting out of his head, he realized he was staring back at a red dress. "Look, it's nothing to be worried about. We all make accidents, and it can be fixed. I can always just buy Dr. Light another mug for his birthday or Christmas." "Birth... Birthday?" he asked. She sighs, "man... golly gee, Wily doesn't sound like he has a lot of fun stuff go on in his fortress." "What? Yes he does. He has the training room like you guys, except it's a lot bigger! And there's also the shooting range. You know those weird hallways and stuff he's got in his castles? Those are for drills and practice runs, and they just happen to make the places super convoluted to get through when you enter in the way that's least secured, like your brother has." "Really?" "Yeah," he replies, "really." She looks over, "well, he's got it tightened down it sounds like, but that shouldn't be any reason to not have anything else or less there." "... What is a birthday like? I know I've heard of them before, but never seen 'em." "Well, it's like a celebration of the day you were activated. Humans have it for when they were born, but for us, it's more like when we were made or first turned on. They're usually with family, but I like having it with a lot of friends." "What kind of celebration?" "You play games, talk, and generally just goof around 'till the sun goes down." "Is there shooting?" "Umm... Not usually, but I guess you can have it at a place with shooting games like an arcade. Those are pretty fun. I can remember the time Rock had one of his parties there." "Wait, it can be in other places?" "Yeah, it can just be wherever you feel like you'd like to spend time with your friends and family the most, and the rest is really made up of what you all do with each other. Oh! I almost forgot! At the end or towards it, there's a cake with candles, and you blow them out and make a wish. Don't tell anyone what it is though, or else it won't come true." "Wait, wishes?" "Well, they aren't exactly... 'real,' but it's still fun to believe in." "In that case, what kinds of wishes have you made?" "... World peace was one of them. I think I recall my first ever one wishing the party didn't end," she looks away, "but those are somewhat kiddy wishes. I just like being with people." "I can't say I agree... but on the other hand I guess I can't say I've really spent time with others." Bass turns over with a few new questions in his mind on the related topic, when he felt Roll's finger on his chin, "we should throw you a birthday party! When is it?" "Uhhhh-I-I think Dr. Wily activated me on... the 24th of March?" "Really!? That's two days from now! Oo! It's perfect! We got to plan this more later." Bass was not sure of what to think. All this stuff? So many things about it was still so new to Bass. "Hang on, maybe we should focus on this right now," he points to the floor. "Yeah, maybe I shouldn't get so hyped about it yet. We can talk later or tomorrow if you'd like." "Sure." He nods. "How can I help with this?" She hands him a paper towel. "Just soaking it up will help a whole bunch." The Wily Number smirks in response, "seems simple enough." Speech from the radio went on with, "Come what may, do you ever long for... true love from me?"

Bending over, wiping back and forth on the tile flooring was the last part of it that was sensible before the same detachment from it began happening again. Slowly, he slipped away back into his subconscious. That was actually pretty good if Bass remembers. It wasn't anything special, it was just something between him and the Light family and a little cake with a present. Either way, he found it interesting of an experience, and the present he got, it was a photo frame with all of them, including Rush, Tango, and Beat. He can't think of why, but that offer of the framed picture to keep as a gift felt oddly sincere. That party, even though it was just the few of them, that was the most social Bass had been in his very existence. He liked it though.

One of the things he found while he was there was Roll's strangely large record and CD collection. Apparently she had quite the hobby. Many different artists, but definitely the ones that stuck out the most were the wacky-looking ones on the front of their album covers. Like a few of them had guitars and suits, usually in black and white. A lot of them had what Roll called a "conk" hair-style. Other than that, Bass is pretty sure that was the first time he heard orchestra music coming from a needle on a phonograph. He didn't know how to think of it then, but now, Bass thought it was amazing. Horns, drums, flutes, and all other kinds of things played by what must've been hundreds of musicians at a time was not like any form of entertainment or media Bass was ever shown, at least not by Dr. Wily.

... And speak of the devil...

The third memory sweeping itself in was back in his first days of operation, in fact, one of his first moments, which he had completely forgotten before. Like he was seeing stars and bits flying across his face until he had clear vision again, Bass began pulling into the theater that was replaying his life to view one of the first colors he got familiar with: gray. Gray that made the top of Dr. Wily's head, bouncing up and down with every slight angry or frustrated move he made, and Bass can't think of when that wasn't one of his normal actions.

Bass was staring down the end of his buster, and fires upon seeing the target in the range pop up from behind the fence. He misses. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!" "Aye, calm down Doc." "Shut the hell up," he snaps at his creation, "I named you 'Forte' because you wanted to be the best! How... the hell... are you going to be the best if you keep missing the god damn targets!" The counter feels the wrath of Dr. Wily's pounding hands. "Maybe we should just replace your arm cannon with a machine gun upgrade, it will need to be less powerful as to not consume so much plasma, but at least you'll fucking hit something!" "Hey, I've only been in commission for... how many days?" "It doesn't matter. What does is that I can switch you off anytime I want. Do you want that?" At the threat, Bass nods aggressively, "no sir." "Then keep goin' at it! I need a break from looking at this," he starts walking, "but remember! I want to see a better score than this when I get back! At least an eighty percent." "That's not fair. You want me to get that high in an untold amount of time? What kind of bullshit is that?" With gritted teeth and stomping feet, the mad old man thrusts his finger, the rest of his hand almost making a fist, "now you listen here. Life in general's not fair! I learned that from working with Light. I thought I trusted him and his dumbass, but he was ignorant to my beliefs, the ones I had when I realized robots like you could be used for better things. You need to stand at attention and keep your mouth and mind zipped. You follow my orders or we're never going to do what either us want because we need progress! And now, I want you to make that progress by not focusing on the little things and to the important parts, which is this," he pushes him back to the range, "I learned from my mistake of being his friend that when you need hard work done, you can't focus on your feelings or else nothing's ever going to be finished. I'm sorry, but that's the truth: in the world of getting what you want done and completed, you aren't allowed to be annoyed."

Silence...

"I'm just pointing out your flaws so you can learn from them. Now get over there and get better!" "Yes, sir!" You're not allowed to be annoyed? Whatever that had meant, Bass didn't want to find out. Not when he was this close to getting the punishment of a lifetime from a red-hot boiling scientist. "Those damn researchers, they rejected my work, and he actually tried to explain what might have been wrong with them?" Dr. Wily quietly vents to himself as he walks slowly out of the room. Shaking, Bass struggles to keep a good mark on his targets. _I can't get decommissioned_ was the only thing he could really focus on as the figures popped up. The lines on them hardly existed anymore, and the only thing he had for attention of them was the bare basics for cognitive thinking of looking out for enemies. He didn't view them as enemies or even things, in his nervousness of Wily's statement, he just saw the red center and fired away. Oh, how much better he did, but how much he was sweating, shivering, and feeling his pulse pound. Under his heavy breath, he moved his arm down to see the scoreboard, which was at the time of the Doctor coming in as well, just to see the screen hanging from the ceiling move forward to show the results.

"See, isn't it so much easier on both of us when you just listen? I'm still considering the buster model change, but look here," he points upward, "eighty-six percent, nice job!" _Are you serious? Do you really think we're good and dandy after what you yelled at me?_ "Uh, yeah, I did pretty good, didn't I." "That's right, Forte! I guess that name will fit you after all if you keep it up like this. At this rate, you can go and take down Dr. Light's greatest robot in no time, and then become the greatest in his place!" "... A-And his name is...?" "Mega Man, or Rock, or... something... I don't know, it's some blue boy that defeated my many robot masters in the past, but I know you'll get him, won't you?" "Of course, why wouldn't I?" _Why the hell do I fight him without getting a proper greeting?_

"Well, tomorrow," he grabs a long sheet of paper out from behind his back, "you will be using the training room for most of the day so you can get a gist of how to understand and make your own battle sequences. Sound good?" Bass nods back, "Yep!" "Good. Very good." It's not too strange to Bass; this sort of situation as his daily routine was essentially the same thing he had going on at Wily's for years. But looking back at one of his first memories, it feels very different and awkward. When Wily didn't like what he did, or he was just in a bad mood, he used his intimidation and anger to get things his way, and he never questioned it because he had to learn _that_ the hard way at one point.

Once seeing all of these instances, Bass began feeling how he did shortly after he left the Light household, like he was missing or lost something.

The stirring from all this and the reminders of Wily's past yells and scoldings raced enough adrenaline through Bass to make him wake up.

"Wily!" he gasps out, wide-eyed.

He looks around to see his blankets in a mess from tossing and turning. He rubs his eyes. He sighs, seeing he wasn't actually face-to-face with Wily. "God." Looking down, he says out, "how the hell do I get this back to how things were before." The door was on his focus now. The one thing that was the most unlike the rest of the bedroom, not an item to be toyed around with to stay kept in, but just something that literally exists for only the purpose of leaving. And leave, that's what he considered. Maybe his normal routine of the morning could wait for a second and he could get something new. Footsteps bounce in the darkness of the untidy quarter. In almost unprocessed motion, given no second-thought, he moves out to the hallway a few minutes early. The common feeling of tired, morning serenity, it was all that fueled him and what he started doing. One of those things was already checked off the list that he couldn't find the end of, and the next one was here at the fork of the hallway. At every other circumstance, he would go left to find Wily, but for once, what happens if he tells himself to stop following and start experiencing? How many times has he even come down this other way? None as far as Bass knew.

"Dear god, she didn't deserve this."

He turns his heel right, and begins walking...

* * *

**A/N: *opens mouth zipper* Hello again! Just Rocket**** Man here telling you all to have a nice day and a great Halloween 'cause I just realized I'm posting this on October 30th. Enjoy some fun and some candy! Even if you ain't trick or treating, sit on down, watch some good ol' horror flicks, turn down the lights, dye your pants brown from fright, and have a nice fun-sized snickers or 2, because you're not you when you're hungry. Happy Halloween y'all! But other than that, please look forward to chapter 4 if you so wish, because we get to see our first present-time interaction between our Light and Wily numbers.**

**Okay, see ya!**

**End of A/N**


	4. Chapter 4: Mercy

**A/N: *FANGIRL SQUEEEEEEEEAK* X**

**It's finally here! Where thy fluffiness begins! I know I said I don't want this to get overly obsessed with the cutesy parts, but I can't help it, I am WAY deep into the hopeless romantic hole and my brain craves mushy bits! I don't want this to be too focused on it though, just have enough for the sections that have it. I am undecided if chapter 5 will have any cute parts in it or not, but I can say right now that I'm glad this is finally here in the story! But don't worry, I'll try to control myself and get back to the angsty writing in chapter 5 and NOT focus on fluff in that one. :)**

**Anyways, please enjoy and if anyone who is reading this has an account on here, for the better sake of my improvement on writing, please be a little nice and do some R&R! Thank you very much.**

**Enjoy!**

**End of A/N**

* * *

Chapter 4: Mercy

Hall walls were passing by ever so slowly. Bass looked at them with careful observation to see if he recognized ever being here before. So far, it was nothing from his memory. Wily's large underwater structure that he wasn't even sure if it could be called a submarine or not had only been around for so long since his last destroyed base, but he usually tries to replicate the important parts of it to keep himself familiar with his own surroundings, and as of now, Bass had no idea what part of any castle and fortress this once was. Then, he noticed something, a certain something that sparked a small part in the back of his mind from his early years. It was the room number, 1024. He had first been educated by Wily in these four walls, and this is where he's pretty sure other robot masters were also taught and trained on who the enemy was and why to fear them.

The glass on the door was fogged, but he could see through there that other than the chalkboard, there were two robots, one with yellow and bulky structure, and one with very distinct purple and shorter appearance. How oddly innocent they looked, just sitting down and listening like obedient school children learning their ABC's. If he knew better, he'd best stay out of it or else Wily would ask why he was in the room. But if he stayed just a few inches from the glass, he could look in and not be seen, and if he stayed quiet, he could eavesdrop and not be heard either, but he could probably mumble a dozen sentences or two with how Wily acted in there.

"No! No! No! These robots do not think logically; you can not reason with them because all attempts have proved they do not listen! I wish it could solved with diplomacy but this is not any situation where it is called for!" From experience, he didn't get Wily's double standards and such, but from that same experience, he knew better than not question him. "So, in the middle of combat, if I am to be called by this... Mega Man that you speak of, how should I respond?" "Most of the time he just lets whatever fall out of his mouth without thinking. The best option is to ignore and continue." He looks over, "you! What is your question?" "C-Can we recite the pledge again? I already forgot it..." He decides. "Hmm... Fine. Let us go over it again. Now," he clears his throat and raises his hand along with the two, "'I will take my passion and turn it to the greater good for robots. If I ever need to remember why I do this, it is for my intention of serving my niche, and my niche says I must protect my master and show other robots how to do so as well. If all robots realize their place in the order of the world, we will then unite and all work together better, for only then will we know what to do with ourselves. We will all have different pastimes and likes, but we need to focus on what's most important, and that is do what we are built for. If we do not do what we are built for, then we are going against our nature and we will never find happiness. If we do what we are built for, then we are going towards our nature and we will find happiness. We do as we say and we will be treated with care. A disobedient robot does not deserve this care. If I'm doing as I must, then I know I am doing good, and doing it for the greater good. I will always follow this and never go off just to mess up the order. I will repeat this everyday and every morning and every night. I will not forget this. I will do this. I will serve.'"

He remembers that pledge. In fact, now that he thinks about it, he forgot to do it the other night when he was lost in confusion. What kind of number did that event do on him? He can't stand hearing it anymore. It would probably be better for him to keep walking. He looked at his hand as he felt a sharp pain run through it. It hurt to move anything on it. His left hand was all achy and sore, and so was his side. What odd position did he sleep in? Were the dreams really upsetting enough near the end to make him turn over and crush his own hand under his body weight? Whatever might have happened, he just wanted to hear a sound that was not Dr. Wily's voice.

"1025, 1026, 1027..." A list of different quarters and chambers were all about the hall, and with Wily's little attention to decorations, the numbers were all that he could look at as he moved. "1028, 1029..." The numbers really managed to put Bass out of his thoughts for a moment, didn't they? Like some distraction that removed a toddler from a sad mood with a simple rattle of a toy. "1030, 10-..." They stop. "What the hell..? Where is this going now?" There was plenty of wall space that could have been used for something, anything else, but instead just had a bit of blankness after number-1030. Luckily as relief to Bass, this ended fairly shortly. Only a minute of brisk walking to see another door again. "These designations... Wait! Which direction is the O-S category located?" In change of mindset and thinking, he began dashing, "where is cell #35-o?"

He walked forward through the corridor at various paces, both regretting and hoping for what's to come. He was close. He was right outside the door and his nervousness wanted to just get it over with finally.

When the door slid open, the atmosphere suddenly became oddly different. It was so much more... calm. Red and blonde movement shifted from the cell bars and looked over to the entrance to the room. And the two gained just the same silent tenseness at the sight of each other for maybe a second. Seeing his hair, she could barely recognize him at first. "B-Bass...?" He immediately ran, "I'm sorry!"

He sprinted down a number of rooms undeterminable by his head. "I am so sorry!" He can't help it. Nothing's made sense to him for the past twenty-four hours and he keeps wanting to find a way to apologize but he just can't figure out how. "I'm so sorry." What's the best way to say it? What's the best way to explain 'I feel bad for killing your brothers?' "I'm sorry, Roll... Roll."

Familiar sweet little sunny words whispered in his ear, "you called?" If he jumped, he would have shouldered her lower jaw, but out of restriction, he only flinched. "R-... Roll? What the hell?" He turned. "How?!" "Easy. After you left, I stuck my hand through the bar opening to try to reach out to you, but then I fell on my face when I realized that the bars were wide enough to just go through." "What? Are you bruised or anything?" "No need to check on me. I'm good. How about you though?" "What do you mean?" She poked at his face, "You have a bit of paleness here and there and you got purple bags under your eyes, and I'm not talking about your purple streaks... which seem to be gone." It was true, they were just prosthetics added for intimidation points that he didn't necessarily need on twenty-four seven. "I... didn't get too much sleep last night. I'm not even supposed to be awake right now I think. I should be getting Z's until somewhere between- Wait a second! Why are you acting like nothing happened yesterday?" "Well," she knew what he was talking about. She's fairly dense, but she's not stupid. Did she feel like such a thing shouldn't be forgiven easily? Yes. But that went for Wily. As she remembers, when they got into the base, the one thing that she heard from the black-armored one was _"what's next?"_

"Be honest with me... what did Wily say you were going to do?" "'Take any robot, even Mega Man if you can, and give our enemy a bit of trouble for when we let loose the next eight DWNs on the world.' Those were his words exactly." "And he didn't say anything else?" Forte shook his head, "why?" "Well, if you didn't know what you were doing, can you really be blamed?" "So what? I still helped! Just because I didn't know what was going on doesn't... mean..." Bass had suddenly become blank, then turned to shock in every muscle of his face.

_I killed them... I watched it too..._

She put her hand on his shoulder, which seemed to loosen his tenseness a little bit. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry." "It's okay. Does it make it any better if I let you know I accept your apology?" He still didn't get it. This was too easy. How can she be this forgiving? She had a peculiar look on her face. It seemed like she was really thinking hard about something, then before he knew it, he was thrown into her shoulder, her arms instantly wrapping around his back. "I feel like you need one of these." His tenseness disappeared. He's never really liked hugs, never. But the feeling was so much warmer than the one that lingered around the base. For once, he finally didn't seem mixed about something: he was definitely a lot sleepier than he originally thought, wasn't he?

"Um... Bass?" He started snoring. Peaceful rest was not the kind of thing he had last night, and now he was getting it. "Hmm... Where is your room? It shouldn't be very difficult to find I bet." While carrying sleeping beauty, she closely hears a faint few words, "you're too nice..."

Meanwhile...

"Oh god, that was so close to disaster yesterday..." The bright-yellow giant looks on to his purple companion. "Note-to-self, we are not professional psychiatrists." "Good quick thinking, that was impressive." "Yeah, but how do you think we should approach this now? I mean it's not like we're just gonna spoon-feed him past memories over and over until he gets it." "I know whatcha' mean, but we need to think of something, we can't just completely abandon it all." "Not what I was saying... but you're right." Circuitry Man had to put his own hand to his chin in his deep thinking, but then a light bulb glowed above his head again like before. "So, I don't think there's much we can do or say, but looking at how we sent signals through the main communications system in the building to get to him, I think I have an idea. Come hear it." Flora Man moves his ear closer to his brother.

...

...

"Really? Do you think that will work? We can only manipulate so much with that-" "That's why we get him to do that. We can figure the ins and outs of it, but I'm pretty sure we'll find how to get those lines through and into the right systems if we use the correct commands." "I mean, it's probably the thing they need the most to fix this whole thing. It can't hurt." The plump robot master puts his hand forward to shake his brother's much more gentle hand to form a handshake and agreement. "Alright, it's concluded, we'll tell him later." "'Ask!'" "Yeah, whatever."

* * *

**A/N: I just realized that I've yet to do a disclaimer...**

***knock-knock-knock* ****"FBI! SEARCH WARRANT!" ****Uh oh... Um, I, RocketMan, do not own anything belonging to Mega Man or Capcom. Capcom, PLEASE DON'T SUE M- *instant jailcell* Well, okie dokie! If you guys need me, I'll be in my cell listening to some dude play the harmonica whilst writing the next chapter. Wish me luck! Also, noticing the date, happy Thanksgiving!(well, almost at least) Anyways, everyone, good luck with your own stories once again, and have a nice day! Bye-Bye!**

**End of A/N**


	5. Chapter 5: Casual Conversation

**A/N:**

**Howdy there! I'm back with the next installment of Realizing to you all. And to Roll-Chan-San, THANK YOU FOR THE NICE LITTLE REVIEW! 3 And while I loved hearing someone enjoy this, would any of you be kind enough to actually give some constructive criticism? That would just as nice and appreciated(thank you so much if you do!). Anyway, onward to the fifth chapter!**

**End of A/N**

* * *

Chapter 5: Casual Conversation

Bass began humming quietly one of those melodies that he remembers easily from his time with the Lights. In his unconscious state, even if a bystander were nearby, it could be made out quite easily of what song it was. No speech, no lyrics, no vowels, just quiet murmuring of consonants that could be made out distinctly to anyone with a single memory of music.

"_Wise men say... only fools..."_

Although in his sleep, he was still a little slow to the beat.

"_Rush in..."_

Oddly enough, even though his mind's been through hell and back of confusion and mixed feelings, his bed felt very cozy compared to the previous night. Just enough to finally rest properly with no force or racing in his mind.

_"But I... can't help..."_

Unfortunately, mental stress came back to him, and his mind started racing again.

His pillow was squeezed, his eyes were shot open, just like the previous night.

"Roll! Did he do any-... What?"

He viewed his quarters. The posters, the bland wall colors, the clock(which he didn't really pay attention to; time didn't matter), and a certain "pike" of some sort hanging from the wall just two meters from the ceiling as requested by Bass to Dr. Wily. How long ago was that? And what's about looking at it? Was it that point? That point, that was the most threatening, or was it something else? It wasn't its whiteness or its glow... _Wait, where the fuck is that light coming from?_ He never had his light on. Why in the world is it shining now?

To solve that oddity, it took the attention of a slight pressure on his shoulder. "Bass?" "Holy- Stop scaring me!" "Who is _he_?" He looked at her. "Who is this _he_ that you were talking about? Did you mean Wily?" He viewed her. The Light bot had been paying so much of her own personal time to be with and help others, and even now in this situation she persists.

"Bass?"

He put his own hand to his shoulder to meet hers. Very calmly his fingertips were nudged to feel around like to check on if it were real or not. Out of either relief or confusion, he gripped it along with his eyelids holding together to murmur, "thank god... he didn't yet..."

...

"By the way," he began asking the old doctor, "what do you plan on doing with Roll?" "Well, as of yet, no clue." The old geezer began rubbing his hairless chin. "I hadn't insisted that you would capture Roll yesterday. I figured you would have gotten a more reliable robot like Auto or something." "I would have if you gave more instruction maybe." He caught a glare. "I might possibly make her assist us in sustaining the fortress. I'm starting to think that Flora Man might only be good for that; maybe I can reassign her for house-cleaning and they can become pals while they work." "T-That means..." "Yep! That means that we'll have to fry her data like we did on those other two, but I'm still unsure of a final decision. Eh, it will come to me later or something. Perhaps I'll keep that idea."

_No, please don't tell me you're already this close with having a plan to kill her?_

"How are the robot masters doing?" "Well, so far only one has been taken out by that pathetic Mega Man. Oh! It's going to take forever for him to go through them all!"

_One? But she's his sister?!_

"What's taking him so long?" "Good god! You're really anxious to fight him, aren't you?" Bass felt something sharp hit him by that question, but went on with a calm, collected answer. "...Yes." "Well, don't worry. It won't be too terribly long before he gets here. All of my robots have just been set in very peculiar locations, that's all! At this rate, I'll have enough time to fully integrate those couple of robots, even if Roll hasn't been reset yet! By the way, how is she doing? Do you mind going to check on her physical status and make sure she hasn't found any weak spots in the cell room or any other sort of..."

By this point, all he heard was "yadda yadda yadda." He heard something about going to check on Flora Man and Circuitry Man while he did it to spare some time, but other than that, his requests weren't anywhere near the first thing on his mind.

"Yes sir!" He made a solute. "Don't do that. I'm not quite at dictator level yet." Albert turned around to move on towards the next room, "just go check on that other Light brat." "On it," Bass said as he dashed back in the opposing direction.

_Just one or two per day? There's no way Wily made them that good! But there's no way that... No, Mega Man wouldn't just ditch out his efforts when his sister was on the line. But how can..._ He paused thinking of another question. _How is she gonna get out of here!? Can he maybe get going faster or something? Or will...?_ Bass gulped at the last line. _No, Roll's not going to go through that. He is not going to make me switch her over to that. Not today or tomorrow or more, that's too soon!_

He ran past the cell, he knew better than to check there.

_But what am I going to do? Even if Rock gets here... I don't want to-_

He remembered the pike on his wall.

_No, no, I can't do that to him._

He imagined seeing the blue helmet sitting on it, hanging from the wall as a trophy or souvenir. Just like what he wanted it there for when he asked Wily to install it to his room.

_No no no, I don't want to do that to him. Not anymore._

Then, he wondered, what if it wasn't his head on it? What if it was Flora Man's, or Circuitry Man's?

_No._

Three pikes, all ordered next to one another in fashionable display with the order going from left to right of Flora Man, Mega Man, and Circuitry Man, all of which sit with their necks on to whatever comfort their lifelessness could ask for.

_No, no, please God in heaven no!_

Now he only saw two: Circuitry Man and Flora Man.

_Shit!_

Just as he expected, she was in his room. She knew better than to wander in the halls when she was supposed to be in her cell. For the first time ever, Roll swears she saw signs of a tear on the bottom of Bass' face.

"So," the doctor said to the DLNs, "how is it going in here?" "Fine and good," came from Circuitry Man. As he began taking notes, Dr. Wily noticed his hands were extended out to the targets in the training room. "Expels... energy... from gauntlets." Before he could ask anything else, he saw the struggling Flora Man using the wimpiest tactics he had ever seen and still falling to his face in attempt to attack the motionless dummy for punching practice. He swears he's seen more intense matches of Rock'em Sock'em Robots. Or in this case, it was, just without one of them moving.

"Okay, get up, stop, you're embarrassing yourself. I think you could help with some work around the fortress instead." "Oh come on! I can take this guy! It's only been a few hours since you've last dropped by." Wily went on grumbling something about robot stubbornness under his breath as he went to drag the gardening robot with him. "Come, I'll show you what you can do." "Can't I just fight?" "No! You're obviously not made for that! You need to focus on something else that you can help with." That poor doctor's back. How heavy was it to drag a 5'4 robot across the floor? Especially one who refused to change positions?

* * *

**A/N:**

**Alrighty! 5th chapter is complete! I feel like these might be a little annoying, so to avoid that, I'm going to not have as many author's notes as the last chapters. That's all I wanted to say! I hope y'all have a happy holidays and a merry Christmas! See ya!**

**End of A/N**


	6. Chapter 6: Decisions, Decisions

Chapter 6: Decisions, Decisions...

He ran. He almost leapt into the Doctor Light number. So many questions, so much that he can't answer, and the only thing that removed any slightest portion of unwelcomed thoughts was her. Whatever motion in an amount of time was made never even went into memory; at one point he was in the doorway, and the next he was holding her like she would disappear from the world in a cloud of smoke and dust. And if she did, there would have been some nasty rain clouds with it. Bass felt so concerned and he didn't get quite why, but at the same time he didn't care, not about that at least. Just how many tears were stained on the shoulder and collar of that dress were too many to count. The words of Circuitry Man were right. A damned dam did burst.

"I-I'm..." The shakiness of the Wily bot made him stutter. "I'm... I'm... No, I won't. I w-won't... l-let..." Now he partially couldn't stand to see her face. What kind of look would she have to a person like him who's never been so sympathetic of another living thing besides himself and his lonesome before? "Just... p-please, be... fuck!" Pounding went to the mattress, kicks to the bed frame, and a couple of fists to the wall closest to him. "What the fuck. Why the fuck! Why can't that fucking-!" He stopped pacing to meet her. He realized what he just said and started to try going back to conscious thinking. "I'm sorry..."

"It's okay. It sounded like you really needed to get that out of you." "No, it's not that simple. You don't know what that was about." He's desperate to act rationally, but he hasn't had the best experience in this field. "You don't know the context behind those words. I don't even..." Now he's began looking at the walls, acknowledge the fact that the room was square, decide what thickness they were, notice the fact that the room was so much smaller than he thought and just how small this was compared to the sub-base and how small that was compared to the ocean and that to the rest of the world. Hyper awareness had taken over his thoughts again and was picking little bits out of his sanity with careful concentration. "This whole... this whole... Oh... I'm sorry."

He waved goodbye to those past thoughts that had just ran by in instants like a passing stranger on the street when he remembered that he was talking to someone else. "May I know what you're talking about?" "Um... sure." He sat down again next to her. "... Wily... thinks he might have... a-already thought of what to do with you." He began quivering his lower lip with his lower eyelids. "T-That... means... you'll end up being like... them... your brothers." Vision out of his corners started receiving slight blurriness as he spoke. "Mega Man hasn't even gotten that many. Doc said he's only got one... so far... the robot masters I mean." Before a word could be presented by Light's house-cleaning robot, he spouted quickly, "I don't think he'll be here by the time that happens... And even when he does get here..." He glared at Roll never wanting to be somewhere else more. "I don't think I want to fight anymore."

"Really? Are you- I mean, I have no problems with that, but are you sure?" "I can't say I've felt more sure about something else." Off of the roller coaster finally, he began feeling some amount more at ease.

Reassuringly, she moved closer to him. She gently rested her palm on his forearm at the same timing of looking closer at him, almost curiously. Not once, a single moment in any part of his life since he was activated a meaningless years ago did he have a sensation of calmness as such by the simple physical touch. Although, did he still feel the pain? Yes, but did it matter? No.

In the cloudiness of his sight, he looked back at her eyes with the same expression as hers. In a small increment of time, a second felt like a thousand years and maybe a bit more. For the first time in his existence, he didn't have a thought on his mind. When only moving slightly closer did he have a better view of her face. Her dilated pupils were the most eye-catching out of all other features. After a long and well-needed break, he then saw in her eyes something that began making his gears turn again.

He remembered another portion of when he was at the Lights' residence for a short while, one when he was intrigued by what sorts of music was on Roll's records that she kept. One of them jumped back and forth between sad and dance-funky types of songs on the phonograph. And at the very last song of Side B came one line from the chorus that stuck with him, "you're a butterfly... and butterflies are free to fly! Fly away...! High awaaaaay! Byyye-bye."

"That's it," he said. "That's it!" He began having a eureka effect on the situation. "We'll have to get out of here ourselves!" "Ooh! But how?" "That... I don't know yet. But I already know a few things: I can't teleport you out because we're too deep in the ocean for a proper transport signal. There are the smaller subs that we came in with, but those are gonna be a huge pain to get to without anything going on between us and _him_. I can... probably get us there. Yeah! That's what we're gonna do!"

"Hang on," Roll tried putting her own words in this, "what if it doesn't work?" "_It_ is one of our only options... Well, I mean... not to be rude, but..."

"I know what you mean. It's okay."

At last, things were beginning to make sense.

"So, you want to try that then?"

A delighted little sound from Roll came, "sure!"

"Good, because I can't think of any other ideas."

To finally have an agreement with not only his mind, but also to have one with her felt oddly satisfying for some reason. Almost the same undefinable reason as what crossed him earlier since her first arrival and the entering self-questioning. Whatever it was, it just felt nice to have an idea that makes her smile. He started looking back into her eyes when a _beep!-beep!_ made noise nearby. It was his helmet's communicator. He was so lost in the moment he forgot he put his armor back on earlier.

"Oh, yes? Hello?" he asked into the small earpiece as he pressed the side of his helmet. "Bass! Down here, now!" "What is it?" "Just get down here!" "Alright, be there in a mi-" Wily disconnected before he could continue.

Hearing these words made Bass think of something as he looked to Roll, whose face seemed to be thinking the same thing. "I doubt he'll ever check, but just in case... you mind being in your cell for the time being?" "Yes." She seemed to understand its purpose of safety for the situation. "Alrighty then." He started moving out to the doorway with timing of Roll jumping off the bedside. "Follow the leader."

As it turns out, Wily was in a bad mood and didn't want to handle Circuitry Man on his own after dealing with Flora Man from a little while before. Nothing too bad, but nothing he wanted to help with... at all.

With less questions than before, Bass was able to sleep a little easier tonight. But how would they actually dare escape? And why does he even... Great, there's another one for the pile, but at least this one seemed like it had a hint of mercy to it compared to the other questions' mysteriousness.

And speaking of mysteriousness, dreamland started appearing a little funny again. At least he had some faith in knowing(to some extent) what his dreams were going to be about.

He found himself feeling again like he was transitioning into another universe rather than shutting down for usual energy conservation and minor body restoration. The feeling was similar to sky-diving but there was no ground, no air, and no pressure. After rolling around for so long longing for answers to unsolvable questions, it was very refreshing.

"Greetings, Forte!" came the exclamation of Circuitry Man. Out of the two brothers, he always looked like the big teddy bear kind of guy who could get along with anyone, while Flora Man was more inside the colored lines of someone who's only known how to be social after being introverted for the greatest time. "God! What's gotten you so worked up." Circuitry Man viewed in Bass' direction like he was a kid looking at the night sky's brightest, most powerful face of constellations. Common hand expressions that arrive from his usual speech brought him from thinking of what Wily made him do, "so," he pointed towards Bass' belly, "we have an important mission for you! More important than anything you've done so far, more than your fights, more than your previous objectives, more than your- I SWEAR to God if you keep staring off I'm going to find a way to somehow throw you off a bridge! NOWLISTENRIGHTNOWMISTERBECAUSETHISREGARDSTOYOURPLANANDIT'SNOTGOINGTOWORK. IF. YOU. DON'T. PAY ATTENTION!"

Bass could take a hunch that he meant business since he just spat out words faster than he's ever heard Wily. "Okay! I'm here!" "Good. So, I'm going to let my pal here lead you in on it, because I can't lead in to save my life." He gestures towards Flora Man, looking the most poise he's ever seen him. "Bass, do you recall that statement we made to explain that we spoke to you before via sending signals to your artificial cerebrum?" "Yes, I do." "So, we've made a tiny, little, itty-bitty theory on how that can sort of help us... all of us..." "... Sounds nice."

* * *

**A/N: Okay, I'm getting kind of excited. :D I don't want to say anything because it's pretty dang stupid to spoil your own STORY for pete's sake! But I think I already mostly have it planned out now. Judging by the looks of it, I'd say... maybe about 10 chapters or so, and that might be the end of the story. So sad that things have to end D: But hey! Lift that silly frown off the ground and turn it upside down! This means we can soon get to the more fluffy side of things! But that's all, and friendos, why don't y'all have a good day and I hope you had a great start to your 2020! I did! Happy New Years! RocketMan signing out**

**End of A/N**


	7. Chapter 7: Thoughts

Chapter 7: Thoughts

One hour passes. Two hours pass. Three hours pass. It's only been the third day and the first that she was back in her cell, but the morning already felt a little odd. Not like before, it just seemed so... hollow. "I should probably do what they were talking about." Bass nodded to himself. He got up from his bed finally and went to his door, opening it, and stepping out into the hall. The last night the two ghost-like Light bots were telling him something or whatever that he didn't quite understand, and apparently, according to their explanation at least, that was the point because neither did they exactly get it themselves. They said it was an inference about the fortress' inner communication systems and how they wanted to try manipulating it to their advantage, which sounded really bad to Bass until they explained why they even wanted to do that in the first place. _"We have a very limited potential from cyberspace. But to that computer, we're just as alive as we were before. It's sort of like how little the spirit of Jacob Marley could actually do in A Christmas Carol, but obviously still exist. We want to milk that for all its worth, and if we can get through some certain things, we might just be able to help y'all in your journey to get out!"_

They said he needed to go to the private communicator control room and flip some things and knobs and switches and all kinds of easy but weird sounding stuff. He was impressed by how much they knew, but he guesses that kind of makes sense for a robot master like Circuitry Man. But even then, he said that there was one part that they didn't know how to explain to Bass at all! He said that it would have sounded too far-fetched, and Bass understands that not everyone can easily define everything, but how was that supposed to make him feel better?

_Just... calm down..._ He can remember a memory back when he was still at the Lights' house to help Mega Man fight King. _"Just... calm down..."_ These were her words, her words when he was in a mood. _"Just be patient. It will be alright."_ He can almost imagine the exact scenery itself. The chair on the porch, the grass his boots were laying on, his arms in his lap. He was sitting after he was struggling with some thoughts in his head. Whatever they were, he couldn't recall now. _"It will be fine."_ She patted his shoulder. _"Thanks,"_ he partially didn't like to admit it at the time, but that actually felt fairly nice.

_She's... She's... Oh, I don't know what I'm saying. _Like automation, his mind was trying to string words together out of seemingly nothing, like it was busy doing something else. Like it was busy doing something else... That's another thing about his mind, its feelings like that one were only in terminology that would make him do a double-take on what he was thinking. They were so foreign, he could only put them in words that didn't even make sense in his mind at first. But...

_She's... She's..._

It suddenly felt like the atmosphere was a little warmer... and a little calmer.

_She's..._

For the first time in forever... or actually ever, Bass felt a little dazed and daydreamy.

_She's... What... am I trying to say? Why do I keep...?_

He audibly sighs out loud. Nothing at all has made sense anymore the past couple of days. Ever since that one thing... that one thing... it's caught up to him without slowing down. He didn't like new things, but that one instance a second ago, he has to say, he liked it.

But now, here he was, standing before the door he was looking for, the one with the plaque, "P.C.C.R." with the words, "Private Communicator Control Room" printed in small Times New Roman figures below it. _Let's just get this over with._ He slid it open and shut it as quickly with no time for light from the hall to even peek in at the one place that Wily never would have bothered keeping higher security at with logically assuming to have no risk of invaders at the bottom of the ocean. Bass went over to the large assembly in the middle and looked for the panel location of most importance to him right now. It's bolted in. He needs a screwdriver. _Goddamnit. _The area behind him seemed like a good place to look, since it had been a mess of tools and extra scrap materials as part of Bass' creator's world-famous organization skills. The search for what he needs begins. _I should have just teleported before we got here. _He finds the tool. The screws of the panel board almost had sparks ignite from the speed of shifting out of their holes by the hands of Bass. _I should have just countered him when we were at their house._ He moves the panel down with a heavy thud. _Maybe I should have just told him to fuck off when I was still with them after defeating King._ Scanning it, he seeks the exposed electronics for the required objects to mess with.

_Or... what the hell should I have done._

A rarity, his anger was actually in the slightest control with himself and by himself. Or...

_Or... Let's just continue._

Bass went through them, picking and turning, flipping, or switching all of the correct objects he was told to modify the positions of. All to just...

_... You know what, fuck it._

Maybe he wasn't as in-control as he was before. If he could he would've slammed the door in a furious motion. As he was marching madly down the hallway, he felt something. Something was wrong. Something was _not_ right. Kneeling down, he held his head in his hands. Just nothing making sense and everything feeling subjectively unjust, it hurt. It hurt.

_Goddamnit! No! Why does that feel so wrong? Why do those thoughts just feel so... _He was physically rubbing his head in attempt of self-comfort from pain. _... Wrong? _"Ah! Why do I suddenly feel so judgmental about everything I think, say, and do now? Fuck you thoughts! Why do you have to be like this now?"

_'You'll understand soon.'_ "That fucking voice..." _What do you mean? 'You need time. It will all make complete sense in sooner time than you think.'_

Hearing Flora Man's sooth voice wasn't bad, it was just the lack of answers that annoyed him.

_But- 'Patient. Just be patient. Calm down.'_ Bass looked down a little bit, a smirk creeping on his face, "hmm... you sound just like her now." His voice sort of fading away in the midst sounding fairly cheerful in his received comment was quite pleased, _'well, thank you, see you later.'_ He swore he heard a giggle in his last statement before his sounding words were gone. "Yeah, you're welcome."

Bass looked down the hallway, but not without reminiscing on some of those words a little bit. _"Just be patient. Calm down."_ That was a little nice to imagine in Roll's voice... But enough of that, there needed to be walking for anything to happen, and how's she doing anyway? Would it be good to check on her now? Or would that be too soon? Whatever the case was, Bass had to do something, so he kept moving. In front of him though, as he kept passing down the curling hall, he found himself seeing a puddle. Then... a mop? Whose hands were on that...

"Janitorial work. I think you can do nice and well in this field among others to help keep this place in shape." "Yes sir, Mr. Wily sir!" "Stop calling me that."

_Fuck... no..._

He turned and ran away from them. He could see who the figure was, he could clearly tell the slender silhouette of Flora Man with grasp on that mop handle, but he didn't want to think about it, he couldn't. He used to think he could witness anything like it... but not anymore.

_He's already making them do shit? How the fuck...?_

It used to seem so easy. The enemy is the enemy and all you have to do is turn from them. But what did that mean now? Why was it so hard to think of white and black so much anymore, and why did it feel so... hurtful? Why should it hurt so much?

_Oh God... oh God..._

Honestly, if there was some god above him, he wishes He didn't have so much confidence in pushing his stress.

He had to do something about it. Everything needed to make sense for his safety of his sanity. He needed to ask. Ask Wily. He needed to ask Wily about it because who else would he go to? What other answer could satisfy himself with an actual understanding of what he meant and what context he was referring to other than from the one who suddenly has become the pinpoint of all questions he has? Wily needed to know, because _he _needed to know, why did all this not make any sense anymore?

Maybe he would have an answer. A good one...

Hopefully...

...

...

...

Goodness, it was just now that Bass was helping Wily that he realized his old man had no knowing of anything that had gone on with Roll or anyone else related and Bass in the past few days. This was going to be a very interesting question to try to bring up... He was putting a barrel up on a shelf when he was looking at his master with a slight dread for what words to come out of his mouth would be next. He had said no words in the last half hour or so other than occasional breaks made by Wily or him to ease the tension between each other. He was so nervous. They had to be stringed together just right or else it could end in catastrophic failure in Bass' mind. But on the other side, it could have been best to entirely just say what he had on his the tip of his tongue, just waiting to come out. It felt like it would be alright and create the greatest possible outcome from just being honest. But then it flip-flopped over to wonder and fear of what his master realistically would say in response to those words should he ever actually say them, and dare question his teachings over the years.

_Just say it._

He had no idea what to do, even though being in an argument in his head while acting out tasks in the real world was genuinely pleasing and kind of like meditating in one of the oddest senses, Bass still wasn't sure when to pop the bubble in his mouth and let it out because he knew that once he let it out, it could never be held back. Those unforgiving consequences of what to say due to past experience, they don't know when to give up. Or when should he give up? Give up and tell Dr. Wily everything that has happened over the past couple of days and ask why, just why everything just feels so wrong? It was confusing. It's such a frustrating time, holding tiny gasps in between gaps of breath in hesitation of what to say or to say it at all.

_Just say it._

He thought to himself, before all slowed and he subconsciously turned his heel to face Wily.

_Just get it over with. Enough with the 'what ifs.' Just tell him and..._

He imagined Roll in his head once again saying something from the past that he remembers.

_"It will be alright."_

He closes his eyes and hopes that she can hear this whisper from his lips to what she said to him such a time ago.

"Thank you..."

He looked to Wily with a more stern look on his face than before, almost like his usual pout, before taking his attention to his back to say the words.

"Hey, um... Dr. Wily?"

Taking his attention off of his own work, Dr. Wily made a small sigh, "hmph?"

_Okay, here we go._

"So, I have sort of a... complicated question."

The doctor looked over his back and turned again to the original object he focused on, "define complicated."

With his master not even really looking at him, he's not sure if that made it better or more difficult to explain it. Bass looked down, "complicated as in I don't think there's one exact point to tackle or talk about."

That definitely caught his master's interest. Wily wasn't too used to hearing these kinds of not-so-simple questions to come out of his creation's mouth, and now he really wanted to hear what specific question or questions have been on his mind. Metaphorically putting the fork and knife down and switching the TV off, he first started thinking of what the topic could be as he turned his full body towards the direction of Bass. He knew that of all the people, his head wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, but he also wasn't one to seem like he had a lot of big hard-thinking questions either, so the most difficult part was trying to figure out how to first approach this to him.

"So, um... what's your problem?" Maybe _that_ wasn't exactly the way to go with it after he realizes what he just said.

"I-I'm... not exactly sure." That was a partial lie, but he knew he couldn't full out start with the big truth. "I... th-think it has to do with Mega Man and them."

"Well what do you mean?"

Here he goes. For the next few sentences, he had to pick his words wisely and carefully. Who knows what could set the wrong thing off? Taking in from what Bass remembered in his past teachings from Wily, this sort of thinking was not supposed to be seen as _good._ It was the first rule to never question what he did, because those complaints were supposedly not worth the trouble for stating. Wily told him straight and clear, authority is made for a reason, and his authority's reason was to teach him how to defeat Mega Man.

Now, how to go on with this? At that second, Bass thought it would be good to answer a question with a question?

"Wily...? How o-often... do you feel... happy?"

"What? What in the world is that supposed to mean? I don't want riddles."

_... Wow, what a way to encourage it you old fart._

"I'm not trying to answer in riddles. I-I'm just not sure how to answer your question properly."

"... So you answer my question with questions? Just be straight with me Bass, what is it?"

"I... I don't know." Another partial lie. "I just have a certain feeling and some sort of thought but I can't explain it. That's why I'm coming to you about this..."

And it's now that he gets onto the actual reason, he just needs to find his bearings on describing what he must say without exactly defining all details that Bass knows wouldn't go very well with his master.

And now onto his point...

He's had to go back in his memories for what's encouraged him to speak up, including those song lyrics he had heard so long ago with them...

_"We've all gone crazy lately, my friends out there, rolling 'round the basement floor."_

_"When are you going to come down? When are you going to land? I should have stayed on the farm, I should have listened to my old man!"_

_"And I would've walked head on into the deep end of the river, clinging to your stocks and bonds, paying your H.P. demands forever."_

"It's very personal. I don't know how to put it together properly."

He was stared at by Wily for a second, "well start thinking of how to put it together. If you want, tell me later," he turns around, "we have work to do right now."

"Wait," Bass began speaking, "why don't you like Dr. Light and his creations?"

"... Huh?" Wily looked back with a very confused expression. "Well that answer should be common sense by now, shouldn't it?"

"Yes, but-"

"What's your point?" Wily was not having of this, whatever it was to him. Bass could tell by his crossed arms he meant serious business.

Come to think of it, a reason he even started this was because he used to feel so angry about... well, everything.

Now, he never felt so... different about how he thought and acted. Not to say anger was nonexistent, but it was something else so new to him where some feelings and emotions seemed to be sharing with each other, and eventually forced out into wanting to ask something that he couldn't really understand.

But maybe it would be best if he just spat the words out. If he didn't know, saying something would at least go somewhere...

By now the heat from Wily's face could almost be felt radiating off of him at what his creation's already said, "speak what's on your min-"

"I think I've been looking back on them and missing them!"

Well, actually, though he feels a lot better after shouting that out, he feels even more worried for a much less internal reason now. For all the reasons, hell, even all the reasons that probably couldn't be thought out in a math formula for what Wily could possibly react like, he felt a lot more scared for his own safety, maybe even his own preservation a little he has to admit to himself honestly. And if those eyes looking back didn't give logical time to fear, then either the past and/or his imagination would.

He kept his arms tucked and crossed, breathing heavily probably to keep himself from lashing out on his creation. "How long have you been missing them?"

"J-Just these past couple a days by now. I know it hasn't been long but oh my god I feel like I've been going crazy! I just had to say it out loud somehow." He kept anxiously gesticulating with his hands all around out of the natural instinct to distract himself and get the energy out from what he's been keeping for what felt like so long, and dear Lord, it just felt amazing to finally be able to say something about it, even if that meant he was going to be punished about it somehow or someway.

As much as it angered him like a bull, Wily went on turning again, putting away materials and other things while he continued talking. "So," he said as he worked, "if it's been only two or three days as you mentioned, I'm imagining this has been going around since we took those three robot masters of _his_." There was no need for him to refer to Dr. Light's name; the emphasis on 'his' was obvious enough. "And I don't want to act like you're stupid and say everything, but I'm just saying this to ask is this at all related?"

With a look on his face of semi-relief and worry, Bass just replied blankly, "yes. I think so... Probably-"

"And don't act stupid with me. Is that a 'yes' or 'no?'" The hints behind both body language on his lips and face when he turned around for a second to say that showed that somewhere inside him he was resisting to shout that at him, but it seems like he thought it was pressing enough as is without having to explode it out.

Here comes that typical slight fear Bass commonly gets when in anything that he suspects would be bad to talk about with his master. This of course gave the responding answer of, "yes."

Now with his one-word sentence out, Wily starts to unravel the next set of a few of his own words for Bass again. Taking a deep breath, and letting out calmly, Wily asks of him, "well, what do you think it is that is making you miss them?"

With Wily, nothing is expected from him. At least nothing can be predicted it should be better worded. But with whatever formula there can be to single out every single lowest possible responding statement from a human being depending all on their personality, nature, and past, nothing in it could have calculated this. How friendly could he make a question sound? Were he eyes even slanted a little bit, like he was tired and Bass just asked him a mundane question(and with him, mundane doesn't seem to be within any plausible topics)? From Bass' view, he can clearly as he can see out of tilting his head that Wily's face doesn't show a lot of concern. Maybe not concern, but actually more of something along the lines of... caring? Bass couldn't exactly explain it. "Um... Well, I guess it could just be that... I think being there again just reminded me of when I had to stay there while we helped each other fight King, and then there was the time we had to get those robots in search of the Roboenza medicine machine." Then there was that keyword that reminded Bass of something, "Roboenza." Why exactly did he need to catch it, or was it on purpose? It sort of was spreading everywhere after all and they had been fighting a lot of robot masters with it.

"And it just made you start to think again of abandoned memories?" Wily kept his cool and calm collective tone from his last question, but something behind it, something that Bass just knows from experience, felt a little more dubious to him that what he was saying.

"Yeah, and... something about them was just, eh, different?" Bass at this point was still trying to hide half the answer and give the truth at the same time.

Wily made a 'hmph' like he was taking a scientific note on observations for a project or study. "And what felt different. Do you care to explain?"

Bass searched for a moment in his mind. Like he was battling his (used-to-be)foe, he had to make sure that he was making at least most of the right moves that would make him victorious. And he had to keep going just like a battle, or else it gave his opponent an advantage because he was standing there for too long. He had to think, learn, and understand fast; that's what would help him here. But what if he sees a rock that could make stumble, and he doesn't notice it quickly enough? Anything that can make him trip must be just as precautious against just in case, but he must admit, he makes mistakes. And then if he... Oh no. "I guess I really liked their music. They usually had that going on whenever they were doing things. More like... I don't know, it's so hard to explain... They also really seemed to be focused on me there. Mm, not focused, but more like..." Bass paused for a second again when he thought about the times when he and Roll would just talk and talk, or sometimes she showed him her music collection that he can say was probably wider than the color spectrum. And their talks were interesting, sometimes arguments but only if ever needed when he was over there, and other times the longer he stayed over, those talks eventually became more and more comfortable. That goes for the conversations with the Lights in general, but talking about music made him think of her collection again, which got to thinking about her more. "The Lights just have something with them," he whispered under his quietest tone he hoped was possible, "and I hate to admit it, but I'm beginning to feel like I really liked being there. And..." Getting a little lost in his own fantasy, Bass looked up, feeling a grin he didn't know he had slip away from his face to remember that he wasn't alone. He sincerely hoped he didn't hear his soft silent mutters.

The honest expression he gave back to his creation as they stared at each other's eyes, even gazing through them, his face's meaning was in the eye of the beholder. Although this was unexpected, this was also predictable from Wily's past. Wily was just really good at making himself unpredictable in his moves. "Bass, I know you might not be in the best mindset right now, but do you mind helping just a bit more?" With his question, he tries to take some of the obvious stress on the situation with going on with something else. "We're almost done."

"S-Sure," Bass reluctantly said.

With a little bit of patience, maybe Bass could think of a better way to say it than when he was just talking with him. Or would it be better to continue and say what he last said, sort of to himself, a bit more audible? At this point, he's not too sure, but it feels like progress was made. Maybe. But in some other universe it felt like progress was made instead. It's now just become another series of 'what ifs' and random ideas he keeps fortune-telling himself to get a satisfied answer rather than focus on the real world. But thinking about that concept that he's not looking at what's really happening feels just as strange as before. With what Wily said, how does he even continue this? Or was _he_ going to continue it? All Bass wanted now was either a mutual understanding between each other or an end to the thoughts going on inside his head. Why can't it be so simple?

...

It took a little longer than presumed, but what needed to be organized and done was now finally organized and done. Bass must say, this better organizing of things that Wily needed him to help with was nothing that he usually did. It actually looked nicer taking a step back finally after all of the moving and sorting.

"The cleaning wasn't that bad."

Wily replied with just a nod. Nothing said though, he was too tired after it.

Bass walked down the hallway with sparing some of his mind to more mundane thought after he was more on track with lifting and carrying things around until Wily interrupted him staring at the wall.

"So you liked being with them?"

_Shit._ "Yeah, admittedly."

Wily didn't really respond. He just nodded again.

_How damn tired is he?_

"Understood. I don't like to ever really consider him an ally, but I had to do what I had to do for my plans. I get being used to a place after being there for a while. That's natural."

_What the fuck is he talking about? He's never this chill about anything. Now he's turned the tables and I've started to get confused by his words!_

"Why are you... so nonchalant about it?" Bass looked into his hands for a second again like he usually has started to take a habit to recently.

Wily waved his hand up much more like he was having enough than as a warning. "Look, Bass, I'm just too sore and exhausted right now to really give any straight answers but I'm just letting you know that I don't really give a crap about how you view something about their atmosphere. I don't care whether you liked it or not, I just need to go lie down." Not a typical Wily answer.

"Wow! Okay... I'm a little surprised. Saying that and I would have figured you'd beat my ass by now or something."

"Yes, yes, I don't care. I just need to go lie down." Wily was hearing him, maybe starting to get a little bit agitated, but still listened.

"Oh my god. You don't know how much this means for me!"

"Yes, yes," Wily could barely finish his two word sentence without a yawn. But the least was taken to him.

"Like..." Unable to keep in his hyperness, Bass just let everything his body was trembling to let out explode in energy across his body in a victory pose. "I can't believe it!" And the energy wasn't just going to arms and legs. "You're actually okay with it." That went for his mouth too. "The fact that you're actually okay with it, I mean... just... I don't know!"

And now getting on Wily's nerves with his rambling mouth has gotten more of his attention as to what he purely meant.

"Like, the Lights, and... Oh my god, you don't know- no, you couldn't know how both confused and relieved I am with hearing no ill word against my thinking..."

Come to think of it, at this point Wily realized he didn't hear all of what Bass muttered, only bits and pieces of it.

"About liking the Lights and even enjoying some of my time over there. Like seriously, it wasn't that bad! I guess it's nice to see what your enemies are doing sometimes, isn't it?"

Wily was getting more and more unsure about what Bass was saying, but after how he worded his last sentence he was wondering if he was just misinterpreting his words and getting the wrong idea, or was it starting to catch to his suspicions now that he's started to not feel so tired anymore? Or is he focusing on it too much...?

"I mean, even to the extent that I think they got the same idea. They're kind of cool! I think out of all the people who I'd want to be more like, I think it would be Thomas-" Bass held his breath.

Wily knows he wasn't dubious. He WAS getting to the point he was most afraid of, and now onto the reaction his reaction was most afraid of. Looking at him in the eye, and then turning away, Wily said to him, "Bass..." whether the pause was intentional or just because it was difficult to muster up his own sentence was a little hard to decide, "you know that was the biggest middle finger you've ever given me?"

Bass trembled. "Wh-Huh?" But that stutter wasn't valid, because he knew what he said, and he had to face the hard way after a long time to remind himself that his master does not take too _kind_ to this sort of talk about Thomas Light, or any Light for that matter.

* * *

**A/N: OOOOOOOOOOOH SHOOT! Things about to go down in this underwater Bass(Get it? :D) huh! I hope Bass knows how to win, because he can win a battle, but there ain't no kind of ass-whooping more unlike the same one you get from your creator! Well, I'm not going to go into specifics, bUUUUUUUt, it goes exactly as well as you probably think it does in the beginning of the next chapter.**

**Otherwise, howdy y'all! For the uncertain times that we're in, I really want to say that as much as it sucks(and as an extrovert I have all the reason to say it does), we can do this quarantine y'all! Like my mom keeps saying, "as much as it sucks and I wish I could go see people and go to places, it's so much better being stuck in here than being sick." And even for those who might be not just in social isolation, but actually sick, best wishes and God bless your soul. You kind of people go in my prayers and I hope you'll be alright in the end if anyone reading this does or already ended up having Coronavirus. I want nothing but the best to come to y'all and even though I can't come within 6 feet of ya, you shall get a virtual hug! *hugs***

**Stay safe y'all and wash dem hands!**

**End of A/N**


	8. Chapter 8: Consequences

Chapter 8: Consequences

After what he said, Bass just embraced himself for what he could and could not expect from his master.

"Bass... you just..."

"Wily, I-I'm sorry, but-t... i-i-it's true-" Before Bass could even put the ending punctuation of his sentence in, Wily held up his hand in a much more firm and confident position than before to silence him.

"Hold it! I've heard enough of an explanation." Slipping his hand down, as if all the energy he had lost before had suddenly jolted into his system again, Wily semi-shouted, "just go to your room. We can talk more about this later. I'm not quite interested in this right now, because why would I? If you care to instead go for being someone else like that more than myself, then why should I be interested?"

By now, a human brain would be more sufficient than an artificial one like Bass had, because a human brain's neurons would probably be less stressed and worn down than his mechanical one must be from all the racing around in his head through an invisible maze with a Minotaur. And that Minotaur was a mister Albert Wily. Almost just like that maze, it can only be the feeling of struggle as he finds a peaceful way out of it all, which seems impossible with seamlessly shifting walls all around that changed the environment in mere seconds. "But... W-... wha-..." And the stutters could not be worse.

"But nothing! Did you not hear what I just said? Or did you not hear what you said? Because to me it sounded very clearly that you just signed off a waver going on like, 'hey! Dr. Wily, I met up with a decision aaaaaand I decided that, you don't matter to me anymore, so bye-bye!'" He even pretend waved as he said it. The mocking didn't do anything except disperse all the ways he could let his anger out on the situation at point-blank range. "You even said that before consideration of your own fellow robot masters! Wouldn't you have liked to see how Steppe Man would have reacted to that? He's all the way up on the surface many miles from here, guarding his station like I told him to, being on the lookout for Mega Man, patrolling regularly for invaders, like you wanted to do! YOU wanted to do stuff like that before just a short while ago; what the hell happened!?"

"But... p-please, let m-me... expla-"

"HE wouldn't have liked to hear that, just the same as I don't! Because, why. The hell. Would you pick someone like _that_ over me or him? You see what I'm saying? You see why I'm pissed off about that?! I've never been insulted like that by you Bass, and now... I can't even believe you..." With a slight subconscious goal in mind of making Bass shake in his boots, he was doing it very effectively.

"B-But... I just wanted to b-be l-like that, so that I didn't h-have to use anger very much for my problems." There, he said it with words mostly falling out of his mouth because he actually wasn't too sure at the time why felt like that so much, it just felt instinctual, but after saying that, it actually made sense in his mind; sort of resolved a little bit. He's right with what he said, he doesn't want to take out as much anger to solve his issues and try to control that. Control it like Dr. Light, or Rock, or Roll...

Before a response, Wily just glared a look at his creation, what's he created, and what he wishes he hasn't created now. He's too much in partial shame and anger to think of anything other than rubbing his face in his hands and then stroking them along his hair trying to vent out a tiny fraction of the stress built up in him from those few instantaneous moments. And now with a more somber face and tone like he had when he was dead exhausted, he just says in a still serious manner, "you know... Why are you still here? You could have rebelled and stayed with them when you had the chance a long time ago. Why come back here if you don't really care about how you develop here anymore?"

A little worried, Bass replies quickly back to him, "that's not what I said. I just... feel like I'd want to take on more of Dr. Light's traits maybe... Maybe not for certain, but there's a strong sense of it. I'm sorry if that offended you.."

"Offended me? Bass, you know I wouldn't like to take too kindly to stuff like that. That's who I am. And if you don't like me for who I am, then... I guess it just doesn't really matter anymore."

"Huh? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean..." Putting a hand under his chin to put something under it for an obviously stressed face, he softly and audibly says, "I wish I was dead."

And in his most confusing panic attack in only the last few minutes, Bass says, "wh-wh- Wait, why?"

Putting his head more into a position like a philosopher who was in deep thought, his mouth continued in just the same 'Wily manner' as Bass called it, "because, you obviously don't care. And I made you hoping you could be my best successor or creation, and I had all the hope in you, and now... it all feels different knowing you don't see me the way you used to just a few days or so ago. Why else do you think I should? Maybe I shouldn't have let you and Treble rescue me after that pile of rubble fell on my back in my seventh attempt of world domination. Or maybe I should have gone out and not had built you at all. My mind kept telling me this was a great idea, that to make you out of Bassnium would be the greatest robots of all my making, but now, I just wish I was a different world where I didn't have to be thrown into knowing what you've recently wanted to... become."

Bass gets it, he understands precisely why he's so disappointed and so furious, but something about this just didn't feel right. He didn't feel like it was right for the situation to be like this, or was it really his fault for expecting him to be open and welcome with his new decisions? Of all the things, he didn't want himself to be the reason his master ended his life, and especially when he doesn't see him to make sure he doesn't. "Are you okay? We all make hasty decisions when we're worried or freaked out. Please t-think out your decisions like we should to make sure we don't do anything i-irrational..." Although even in his most calming voice he wasn't too sure how that held up.

"What? No, i'm not trying to actually say that. I guess I just wish I was... somewhere else rather than here. Because you obviously do."

_Ahhhhh shit!_ Bass was halfway through wondering whether to cry or keep back his tears from hearing what his master meant. _What do I even do? Was this my fault?_

Just at the moment, the shortest and most colorful of the previous Light brothers came up from down the hall, "hey! Dr. Wily! We were wondering where you were. We're supposed to be going through our next course of training soon. It's supposed to be happening in just a few minutes and you said being early was on time!"

"Not now, just a second. I'm talking right now. Would you mind letting Circuitry Man know that I'll possibly be a little late? Let him know it won't be for certain though."

Just as giddy as he's always been before, a strange sort of reminder of just how much positive energy was still somehow left in those once robotic husks to Bass was like a coping mechanism for the current scenario still ongoing and just put it at a brief pause, he held his hand up in a solute with absolute generous authority, "yes sir!"

As he turned, also turning the gears in Bass' mind back to feeling scared and worrisome, Wily screeched, "I said don't call me that!" Although he didn't seem to either care much or didn't hear.

Wily began motioning back to staring at Bass. Now to say that the mind of Wily put in more fear than any force of nature was an understatement. From a man as hard, thick, and tough to crack as he was, there was such a strong sense of self-preservation within him that his statements earlier seemed... in a strange way to say it, as Bass had to admit, almost ridiculous. He knew for a split-second of not having worry at another sudden feeling of realization that he could be, in the sickest way, tricking him. Maybe not exactly trying to trick him, but to show him that he's _wrong._ Not to prove him, but to flat-out say that Bass was _wrong__._ His own mind feels a minor ache, much less aggressive than those from before, of trying to put it in words but he _knows_ from feeling that this is just not the direct message that Wily is trying to get at. How can he say from experience that Wily has been in the past? In absolute near nanoseconds of putting everything together, Wily knew most definitely out of all other things that there's a will for things to go, and his own will was to see what he did. He had to see what he did and improve himself. If something was thrown to a hole and it fell against the closest adjacent object instead of falling into the directed area, he would do a practical mental scan of any imperfections to make sure it fell in the hole he wanted. To Bass, this was as natural as the common sunflower. Why not follow logic in these certain situations? And if he finds a field of interest, practically all resources go towards that playing field. He didn't just use it to play a round of ball all day, but to see it, understand it, and find newer ways to throw and play that same ball. Another thing that couldn't be argued.

But another thing about his assertiveness in what he wants to do is his stubbornness. With strong likes came a lot of strong opinions. And what exactly happened in all those years that he and Dr. Light had been friends? Bass could never probably determine that nor was it really his business in it, but he can guess one thing: a disagreement. Wily's best measures were definitely in defense, not a proximity close to mindfulness. It's not like the German scientist didn't care, but rather there was something about it that could only acknowledge that two plus two equaled four rather than how to help the one next to him understand why it is that way when he struggles. At least comparing it to a lot of the ways Bass used to think, that was how he believed it could be, but in a fairly reasonable question that Wily said, what did happen? After all it could be from misunderstandings of what his master said. It's not like his master didn't have a growth mindset or anything. But something just felt so off, and something about those memories of the Light household just felt so... cozy. Wait, what? That's definitely not a word Bass ever thought he'd use to describe something in his lifetime. Did he really just do that? Who knows, for now, the most seldom out of Dr. Wily's expressions was facing back towards Bass as he had one last moment to see the purple bot skip away. And that certain expression was a sad one, but Bass knew, Dr. Wily couldn't really be _sad._ If true sadness involved vulnerability, then Wily, he was never truly sad. Dr. Wily wasn't even vulnerable at this moment; even if the words didn't say it, his tone definitely did.

"Bass... just... why? Why say that or decide that? Weren't we pretty good buddies? I remember being close. But where did this whole spontaneous one-eighty come from? You know how much offense I can take from that...? You should."

Another string of letters that Bass couldn't really decipher on how to interpret it. Even if his theories were true, that did not at all mean that Wily had no right to human emotions. He knows that there was still a little bit of leeway in strange and confusing moments like this one and...

"Well? Say something. Bass I know you have more to say, might as well get it out right now."

... where did that thought come up? When did he get such an idea for how another person's emotions work until just now? Where is Bass getting all of this stuff? All he knows is it started with a feeling, a certain feeling as unexplainable as the reason a person walks with two legs just struck him down and just as quickly began recovering himself a little bit with having this entire new world of view in his pupils. "I don't know. It just doesn't feel right." But would it be better though to focus on what it is behind the mind of Wily? Or would it be more beneficial to do what he told _her?_ After all the mind of Wily could almost be a whole science field on its own. "And things have started seeming... different... I'm sorry..."

Wily gave a very simple huff, "well it's too late for sorry. Can't take those words out of your mouth now."

But on the other side, he was looking at his disappointed master. How could he not have some sort of sympathy to his stricken creator? "I know... We had so many plans."

"Well," his same master began speaking out flatly, "some plans change." And with that same tone gave a moment to stare out into the open hall, "and this is something that I don't really know how to respond to it yet. But... there are other things that need to be done. I need to get back to those two robot masters, who I'm betting by now you probably wish were your brothers so that you didn't have to help kill them."

In a very odd way, Bass actually has to say that Wily was wrong, for some reason he didn't have the want at all to be related to them that way but he couldn't quite put why.

"Bass, go back to... whatever you had to go on doing. I don't even remember anymore and I don't really want to think about it right now, but we'll be talking again later."

_Sure we will._ To Bass, that was a solid 'maybe' considering what else he's said and decided recently. And for some reason that short(did not at all feel short to him) passive-aggressive argument put more oil on the flame for that.

With what else of the memory left where he and Wily left a bittersweet farewell, he remembered going to Roll's room in a semi-dash and getting a puzzling look from said Light as Bass in seconds realized it was because he had come panting.

"Huh? Oh, I'm alright. Just... a little tired." Both the truth and not since he had so much that was emotionally exhausting to go through, but things could probably be better explained after he tries his best to explain what the plan is that he wants to do according to Circuitry Man and Flora Man, of course not using their names for context of what she doesn't know happening underneath the curtain, but first he had to admit, after what occurred just perhaps a few minutes ago and all else before seemed to fade away for a small instance when he noticed the Light number in the cell smiling at him and like it was contagious followed suit. In a stumbled laugh he says, "how can you stay so cool under pressure of everything going on? My, my, that is impressive." And hearing her laugh was cute enough to his own ears to make him want to keep the moment's instant just the way it was for a little longer... another word he never thought he would use as an adjective to describe anything in his life... But as time goes on to soon be hitting an abstract deadline he had to get to the point by clearing his throat and reminding himself why he came in there. "Okay, so I know some of this is gonna be just a tiny bit bizarre, but listen to me," as he prepares to cover up the parts he can't explain on the spot with his far from superb improv skills, he continues, "I got a plan."

* * *

**A/N:**

**Howdy! So we're almost done with this story here, and I'm glad that I got to release this chapter right on my special b-day! And I ain't talkin' 'bout the school A-day B-day system... LAUGH, THAT IS A DEMAND! But puns aside, I hope y'all are being safe and good under your emotional well-being since this may be the most vulnerable part of our health to be affected by this stay-at-home order right now. In the words of Bill Withers in Lean on Me, "You just call on me brother when you need a hand. We all need somebody to lean on!" Because that line cannot be more true than in a time like this, and it's very good to remind ourselves that and to others, especially to anyone who we might suspect might need that kind of support the most. I know I have friends who I worry about the most.**

**But either way your fellow RocketMan worries about everyone who comes to mind so I hope everybody is doing great and maybe even excellent right now and if not then I wish you the best of luck to the fullest. Hey, even if you are doing great, I still wish you the best of luck! :)**

**Maybe we need to start investing in more good luck charms... Hmm... XD But anyways I might make a one shot in between this and the rest of the story to get away a little bit from the angsty angst and focus more on the shippening, and I mean some FLUFFY shippening :D**

**See y'all soon! RocketMan out!**


	9. Chapter 9: Ideas & Attempted Progress

Chapter 9: Ideas & Attempted Progress

One of the weirdest nights in terms of sleep was how Bass experienced the following night. In shorter words to describe it, he didn't sleep well. There was tossing and turning, barely memorable moments when his eyelids would open at random times before shutting closed again minutes to hours(at most there were two hours) later, all general hectic restlessness, very _very_ odd dreams that were partly to blame for why he was kept awake so much, and nothing nice or peaceful at all for a peaceful time like sleeping.

In one of these dreams, he recalls sitting down in a booth-like seat in an auditorium or similar room, where a lack of people were present for whatever was going to premiere before them. Though of course, due to the ever-present dream logic that did exist, this was not very strange to Bass per se as most dreams just seemed more like a story whose narrative was being read by him and engulfs himself in part of that literature-world to get a feeling for what the main character feels like. In the theatre of sorts, certain dimensional boundaries and parameters, such as specifics of the floor tiling, wallpaper, and etc, did not seem very important, for all attention was suddenly brought to mainly where the center stage or projector screen should be, as a large familiar character from a horror video game that Mega Man had shown him sometime ago appeared inside of it and moved forward as if Bass was wearing 3D glasses(this observation only coming from the way that it looked like the figure was coming forward didn't look entirely too real). With being in the path of the movement for an unstoppable force, shock running from the tips of his hair to the ending of his artificial toe appendages, all muscles tensed up as he couldn't scream, closed his eyes, and felt relief when he realized the physical manifestation of darkness didn't actually walk to him, seeing an empty theatre. As a result of the tension in all muscles, he noticed he found comfort in the warmth surrounding the palm of his right hand as his dream world already had the answers to what he was holding before he actually had to turn to his right and apologize to the individual sitting next to him. Apparently, Roll was sitting by his side to see what the movie or performance was on stage together, and in reaction of the charging shadow-like thing he had squeezed her hand. Roll acting like Roll, had initially been scared at first before the hand grab, but being focused on that she just said, still completely in shock from what had just happened from the stage right in front of them, "it's okay."

Hearing the slightest amount of the physical thud in his upper chest as he felt his mechanical heart beating hard enough to almost make an impression on the bed sheets below it, he opened his eyelids once again, feeling physically drained as his body was rushing so much in his sleep from fear and paranoia in his small nightmares that he couldn't keep up with a consistent sleeping pattern throughout that night to conserve his energy, restore imbalances, and whatever else his body did while asleep that he couldn't remember. He just closed his eyes, feeling like he couldn't lift even his arm up so much as one centimeter but his heart was beating too fast and the familiar feeling of stalking paranoia filled him once again as his brain went back to his latest memory of his dream and flinched upwards on his bed as he felt like something could be watching him. In reality, it was no other than lingering fear of the unknown from his dream that flipped his high alert in the 'on' position. His head shook out some shivers that had been held up in his dream as he let them all out and felt one go down his spine. Outside of feeling it was genuinely cold in his room to a degree, he just had to ask himself, as his body flopped back down onto his bed while not feeling tired enough anymore until he knew there wasn't anything watching him, why did he keep getting this in the night right now?

Bass has had troubles sleeping by himself in the past, but this was a special case of wondering once again, 'what the fuck is wrong with me?' He started out by wondering if the lack of proper sleep that night was all in his head and tried to knock out possible reasons that were least likely to cause the predicament he was in before moving onto more likely ones. Then as he started seeing how none of what he was guessing felt quite right, he began to wonder if it really was being caused by an outside problem for him to be in the insomniac position he was for the time being. He _has_ had similar situations come up in the past before, but none of them had ever been this bad.

With a yawn dismissively disrupting the start of his statement, he asked out loud, "does this have something to do with Wily or some..." he paused on his own profanity, "... stupid thing?" That curse alternative felt a little better to him for some reason, but that obviously didn't help with the main problem on terms with how to get his body to rest peacefully and correctly. In his life he's always overworked to try to improve or even _perfect_ things, but resting? That has never been a common ease of access resource for him since his mind was always thinking with possible ways to improve his aim for firing, guarding himself in combat, outsmarting the enemy. But recently, and very recently, that hasn't been a particular part of him to think a lot on, so why was it so damn hard to fall asleep?

Like the other times in the night when he woke up, he started to become a semi-zombie. He could feel his body become one with his sheets like a master procrastinator unable to find any motivation in anything, and catching himself in this, he knew something didn't feel quite right, but what could it possibly be?

"Was that... bad?" His mind began quickly troubleshooting possibilities for his state. "Was I doing something wrong earlier? Maybe I wasn't clear..." Saying something wasn't as much as an actual solution, but it took his mind off of some strain in the very least. "Or... no, I don't think that's it. I mean..." He sighed. "Or maybe I am just getting too into this stuff. I don't want to start sounding like a poet..." He almost began another rant of 'fuck you thoughts' but didn't want to keep repeating himself. Then he realized just how much of a pickle he's in. First off: his brain's been flooding with new emotions. Second: he's been loosely connecting these to other things that he's not too sure if they were actually related or not. And third: he got into an argument with his own creator about it and he feels just the same as he did before without moving a single inch from his blunder hole. And still, after all of this the cataclysm is still so unclear that he has to think if he's in a bad soap opera. So many strange situations in a few days that all feel like a devil's pitchfork had stabbed him in the eye, all leaving him with a stinging mark that doesn't come off so easily like an everyday falter.

Could an emotion really be so intense and cause so many situations? Of all the things, could the one that doesn't ever and won't ever physically exist be the one to cause so much? Evidence from key points in Bass' seventy-two or more hours of his life seem to be changing courses and pointing towards the answer being 'yes.' But why would it, and where did it come from? A block in the road from this other sudden realization practically puts Bass back at square one. What would such an emotion be called, and is it common in most other individuals? Most importantly, why must it be such a royal pain in the ass to Bass? Bass remembers one time when the doctor who made him had an opinion to say on emotions. He and his maker had many small conversations(or more of his creator talking while Bass listened) about his personal philosophies to help Bass grow in understanding and thinking about emotions. In just about all of them, they boiled down to a very simple '_you control your emotions, don't let them control you; don't bow down to your emotions_,' or '_impulsive emotions are so ridiculous; some emotions just need to be dug in a hole deep enough so that they don't control your thoughts and actions._' On the topic of this, Bass has to agree, but then there's something else about even _those_ that don't feel right. It almost has the same feeling that if he were looking at an almost completed puzzle, it would look okay until he notices there's a piece missing or a piece in the wrong place. A certain gut instinct was telling him it was the latter. But in the end, disregarding all of his weird philosophical thoughts, why couldn't he just go back to before he didn't want to bang his head on the wall from his head hurting so much?

Despite all physical exhaustion of his body from absolutely no actual sleep, he got up in attempt of hitting something, but fell immediately onto the floor from his bed sheets due to not having the strength to fully function. Praying that he didn't break anything in his body, he clenched onto the bed frame to move upwards onto his bed and hopefully get some sleep, but then his mind picked up on an observation that made him think of a certain possible outcome of everything he's seen happen so far: an outlet. Outlet. Electricity. Shock. Electrocution. Deletion. Robot masters. _Light's_ robot masters. Roll. _Roll_. What was Roll's current condition? After the argument that he and Wily had gotten into earlier, it's entirely possible that his thick skull(which Bass wonders if it was inspiration for the skull motif in his bases) had lost a percentage of trust in one of his closest robots and had decided to take Roll to do the job without the help of Bass... Maybe even with the help of those two post-husks of robot masters to get her into the chair? Whatever the case, that idea alone was enough for him to spring into action.

"Oh shit! Why didn't I think of this earlier?" Once tired and literally collapsing onto the floor from exhaustion, Bass found his legs transforming into those of rabbits with each and every move that they made with trying to get to Roll's cell room before it was too late should his assumption be correct. "Roll, I'm coming!" He whisper-shouted all of the things he had to say and all of the short swears that he had stored up for a long time to say at the reason behind all his mental discomfort, now in use for pumping up just about all of the energy left in him to keep going until he knew Roll was safe and sound. If all else fails, he has a last-ditch effort to hit his creator right in the kisser and make a much more rushed version of their planned escape. He _hopes_ he doesn't have to resort to an option that completely goes against Asimov's first law of robotics, but in the back of his mind he knows the same feeling that's been following him like his shadow would go to that above all else with what's been happening.

In however many minutes or even seconds it took to find it, Bass nearly tripped upon stopping and opening the door for #35-o. Thankfully, even with Bass' hasted move to get into the side of the room where he can see her cell bars, Roll was found in a position on her side and her face to the wall with audible snoring. No Wily. No Wily bots. No endangered Roll. "Oh... oh thank God..." Taking a breather, Bass noticed that the only thing endangered was him to his clumsiness as his body was about to give out from his running right after recovering zilch energy whatsoever. The last thing he did before he totally fell to the ground was try to humor himself thinking it would keep him in a stable mood, "hey, Wily, do you mind turning on the coffee machine?" Of all the things he could have done, that was his last moment of cognitive thinking before his knees gave out and he instantaneously hit the floor, completely passed out.

No significant dreams. Nothing. The lack of seeing Flora Man and Circuitry Man in his unconscious presence must have been a definite sign for doing what plans they spoke of the following day. The plan itself was simple(and oh so strange) enough, but like all other known missions in the universe, it's a matter of accomplishing it. One slip up in this sort of strategy and Bass knew all involved would have the most possible hell to pay. He knew what he needed to do and how to do it, and he drastically hopes this hypothesis that the two Light brothers had would actually work. And if not... all Bass could do is gulp in anxious fear.

The moment Bass began to obtain back his consciousness was when a disturbance appeared in the form of sounds coming from a high pitched source. When consciousness began to take use of the five senses gradually and slowly, he saw blurry images that barely made out the darkness inside his eyelids before his body could obtain the ability to open them. By the time they could physically open them, Bass' hearing eventually realized that the source of sound and the sound itself was just something as familiar as any other voice he knew. Roll's voice. Apparently, however long ago, Roll awoke on her own and the second she saw Bass sprawled out on the floor, just as anyone else would, began doing whatever she could to get his attention to make sure that he was alright. Due to the separation of cell bars and roughly two meters of space, all she could use was the power of her voice and cry out to him, only silencing herself enough that no more than her room could hear her.

Bass couldn't blame her. "Hu-Oh! God..." As he straightened himself back up, he began to explain away his sudden instinctive move that bolted in him last night that put him where he was. "Shoot... My bad. I... wasn't keeping you worried about that... um..." However coming up with that explanation was not so easy. "I had a very weird night last night, and I... a lot of just strange stuff I don't know how to string together happened that made me wondering if you were okay... And I may or may not had literally fallen asleep when I saw that you were, indeed, alright. So sorry about that thing with me just laying there..."

"Should I take that as you didn't get much sleep beforehand?"

Roll's quick but normal response was still enough to put a slight jump in Bass' step after having the hectic night he had, continually throwing his fists at whatever made him have such a reckless mindset last night in his head. "... Would you believe me if I just answered that with a 'maybe'?"

Roll stared back with just less than enough force to physically move Bass back. "Yes and no, because that's what 'maybe' means. Have any weird dreams?"

"You don't say..." Bass has to say that whoever the storyteller for dreams was was always a pretty odd fellow by the way he tells them, but his dreams last night had _particularly_ weird details. "I will answer that with a 'yes'. To tell the truth, mine were pretty bizarre. Mind if I share anything?"

Roll responded with an affirmed nod before saying, "you can. That's why I asked after all!"

Bass put his index finger and thumb on his chin and cheek in recalling events from just hours ago that happened inside his brain. Roll had to admit that this was probably a favorite pose of hers to see him in. One of her favorite parts in Bass, physically, was how semi-squishy his face was. Back at one of the couple of times when he had been at the Lights' residence provisionally, she had found out by accident that his upper cheek was softer and mushier than it appeared at first glance that it would be. Of course he told her to stop poking him when she found this out, but she still can't help her internal need to squish whatever she finds adorably squishy. Anytime there was a need for Bass' hands to make the impression alike that of pressing on two little balloons that were the left and right sides of his face, there was always a small part of Roll that put all attention on seeing such a one-track minded person like Bass suddenly turn into part of the look of a cartoon chipmunk. "I honestly don't remember all specifics, but the one I recall most was one in a large room. A theatre or a bar I think? It just had some guy chasing towards me for the briefest moment possible. In another one I think there was something leaking in a rundown place? And then there was just a smaller more normal room that just had not a good feeling to it." His theatre dream had maybe enough from it that Bass could trace back to write a small thesis on, but he preferred not going further into talking about that one to keep from ever getting close to pointing out the end of it. He dared not say that part of it out loud for obvious reasons.

It was not like there was not a part of it that was actually comforting, admittedly, in the dream, but just as how some things are only in such a way because dreams going into certain points of view are why certain feelings are experienced in them. That's why something silly can be so scary no matter what the context of the situation could be, because giving it the sense of being real will make all responses and reactions feel real too. The way something like fear follows in some cases is also why being so scared that it physically interrupts the inaction of falling asleep will cause one like Bass to have much difficulty getting back into that previous phase of relaxing REM. That's why something like the small moment of comfort(of which Bass does not like knowing the fact that it was comforting in the dream) at the end from Roll didn't creep along the same way as his fear did; it didn't have the same lasting impact of his fright to wake him up from his sleep. Intense experiences, whatever the feeling or reaction is, also always hold the quality of being against interpretation in however one sees fit. Some have had dreams of doing such an unexpected action as shamelessly wronging one close to them without regret despite the positive or negative relationship and thoughts that they held with each other; this can't be any different, right?

Bass had to stop thinking hard about this before the blush on his face became more noticeable. "I mean, it's not too bad hearing about it, but you know how dreams are sometimes, they're just so..." Bass had to look around for a moment as he realized his pupils started to shift entirely to the center of the palm of his hand before his eyes fell right back down on the same palm. "They're like you're actually there when you're unconscious. Our heads have some weird games to make us fall for when we're not anticipating it in the dream world, don't they?"

The female in the room, and the only one in the cell part of it, fully acknowledged her turn in speaking her words about what Bass had said. "Yep! I actually asked because I had some pretty strange dreams last night that seemed so surreal that I almost had to reconsider if I actually witnessed it awake or not. Hearing you talk about your sleeping troubles made me think of what I dreamt last night, so I thought I could ask in case your issue last night was possibly related."

Bass caught a part of him getting some similar feeling again that's been kicking him in the ass ever since it's started some short amount of days ago. "Would you like to tell them?"

"Hm? Wait, do you want to hear mine?"

For a split second of hearing that sentence, his emotions did something similar regarding the ever-so mysterious 'sympathy' question, and it caught him off guard even though he's already felt it so many times during such a short time frame. "Yeah, the way they sound kind of caught my attention, so I'm curious to hear it." Plus, the short description she gave was partially putting his analyzing into the realm of fantasy. She wasn't getting the same dreams like they're being directed separate roles in a scene for a television program, was she?

"Oh, I was just a little surprised to hear that you were interested, coming from you of all people- I mean, not as an insult or anything!"

"No offense taken." Pausing for just one minor second feeling like he needs to put another phrase out, Bass let's out, "please, go on."

Roll, still in the same surprise getting used to this new reality where Bass had started using a basic form of manners, began, still somewhat cautious of how much Bass would actually be focusing, "you ever have a dream that gives you a unique bit of a theme that seems so much more meaningful than others?"

Bass hated how much he felt the resemblance from what he knew occurred in the end of his dream last night. "I can't name any examples," that was a lie, "but I know what you're talking about."

"So... I had one like that last night. It had such an oddness to it, one that I can't even really describe more than it just felt different than normal dreams. It was so... out of body almost, that's how I can best describe it." Hesitant in fear that Bass' honestly silly assumption was possibly correct, he let her continue. "I had nothing in my surroundings... or that's how I remember it- but even then, it's so stuck to my memory that I can swear I can say every detail that probably happened in it." She took one single movement to try to motion herself to pay more attention to Bass as she said it, meanwhile trying to think of a way to back up from making her dream a bigger deal than it was. "Gosh, I don't mean to sound crazy, it just felt so different that it's hard to not think so much about it. I was in a cloud-white kind of room, or lack thereof, and I had a really weird conversation in my sleep with..." An obvious struggle to keep her smile up placed itself on the edge of her cheek as more of her body language began changing slightly, "Circuitry Man and Flora Man of all people. But I guess that kind of makes sense since all our dreams are made of past events that our head tries to piece together, right? I mean, it had almost nothing to do with the content, just the feeling of it was so surreal! And afterwards, just thinking about having a conversation with them... doesn't make it much better."

... Well, that definitely wasn't what Bass was expecting, but he's glad that it at least excluded any portion of his dream the previous night hours. "Do you miss them?" And that was the last thing he thought about saying as well. There were no plans for what he wanted to say, but he didn't expect any words to come up that quickly.

To both their surprises, he still said that with actual sincerity, a word that Bass didn't even know the meaning of until he went to the Lights' residence. "U-Um..." She held half of her voice in her throat, "my a-answer would be yes..."

"That 'it' you said, should I assume you're referring to that feeling of missing them?"

"... Yes..."

Poor thing. Bass would have to be just blind as a bat to not see the how ever so slightly the little bits of time just keep adding straw on top of the camel's back for Roll, and the bat could probably even see that. No sounds; nothing. All it was that gave it away was simple body language, gestures, and signs on her face. Throughout all of this it was pretty clear that the stronger individual in dealing with this was the one who was used to responding to different emotions, Roll, but that never gave her the rule of being invincible. "You could probably tell from my mood and such as we've both sat in here under the sea for days, but I think I do too." While Bass had no idea if that would help, he did have to admit to blatantly being one to feel hurt, even if it may be from his own actions. "I can't believe what I did, and I still don't have much of an excuse for it either. I did what Wily said, but I still did something with it. Something that is actually almost amazing to see the doctor stand up straight with that smug as- attitude of his and walk away unscathed from. Oh shi- shoot, my train of thought!" A big ol' slap in the face from Bass back at himself, "what were you about to say?"

Roll positioned herself just for preparation of anything bad to come out of questioning Bass, who had been acting very different lately, but it was still good to try to keep her guard up. "I didn't have anything else in particular I wanted to add, but now I do want to ask, why has it been upsetting you? Not that I have a problem with it, but it feels so far off how I remember you acting about with stuff like that."

"That... well, I don't know myself, but I felt something after doing it. Like some traumatic experience, let alone a traumatic experience caused by ME that triggered something somewhat familiar but vastly differentiating from anything else I've had."

Like usual, Roll always managed to find some way to fit in a cutesy expression with her facial features. She had both elbows leaning somewhat outward onto the edges of the vertical bars while letting her jaw sort of drop into her palms to mock how Bass' cheeks always moved upwards whenever she (dared) try to squish them. "So Forte does have a conscience!"

"Wh-Where did you hear that?" If the silly face wasn't enough, hearing someone like Roll say his original name, giving proof that she knew about that name of his, sent all confused but blasting alerts in his head about all that's going on.

"Just testing something." She began moving back up with a more genuine smile on her face this time. "I heard Circuitry Man call you that in my dream last night and I wanted to see if that was actually true or not. I must have heard that a while ago, why do you think some dreams bring back stuff that happened a long period of time ago? Eh, either way, I guess I don't remember my past very well for every moment you were there with us. But you sounded quite surprised by that." Her partly teasing tone didn't help Bass from getting Roll to believe that it was indeed just a dream after hearing her say that. "I think you of all people would remember when someone learned about something as adorable as a secondary name for yourself." She meant only fun and games in her current sentences, but that didn't relieve any of Bass' worry.

"... You know that feeling when you can't figure out what all happened in your dream," to be fair, that was kind of a lie, "and it annoys you for a good chunk of time just because you can't think of the story that was behind it? You've got the total opposite right here, can you remember what else they said."

Only a millisecond after stating the string of words, Bass realized that was probably not the best way to go with wanting to know more about her dream with Circuitry Man and Flora Man, but he can't exactly change his execution he said for it, can he?

"Hmm... yeah, I mean I suppose that's the interesting part. It was mostly just like an extended affirming message that went on about how everything in this kinda messy situation will all turn out alright. I swear, it felt like I was standing right there; what a really, really, really weird specific scenario for a lucid dream."

Now Bass new better than anything that it wasn't just a lucid dream, but why would it seem that way to her? Maybe they didn't persist too much in her dream about her actually experiencing a (albeit a somewhat abstract concept of one)conversation because they didn't need her freaking out as much as he first did with his sci-fi style spiritual interaction when they were getting so close, just close enough to where Bass' fingers could have almost been touching if he decided to show, to being able to escape with their weird revolt.

Of course Bass did not want to give any hints to what happened and push her any more into hitting confusion, so he chose his words somewhat carefully, just not as necessarily careful as before, to get his point across with the dream she had. "Look, I know that was a dream and all, and dreams are usually just putting together things from previous knowledge just like you said," he wishes he hadn't said something like that to unintentionally make him turn a tint of slight red, "but no matter whether it came from a dream or not, it will be alright in the end. Finally we can freaking rest soon after all of this." Of all people, he definitely knew he needed rest, but not her, someone like her who had enough energy to turn positive at the drop of a hat was nowhere near missing a hint of sleep. Now he just wished the tint on his face would go away and he could stop occasionally thinking about the end of his dream last night from any slight mention of anything related to it.

But he did act on it. Somehow it was as if he followed the feeling on his face for where he next brought his actions. Thinking about the general condition of anything pointing right back to Roll would cease to process the information only to make his physiological self react in what he could only describe as _hurt_. As if that _hurt_ could speak commands, the tubing and workings from the basic center of his being turned everything around him into a one sentence summary. Just a short enough summary to make any detail less than significant not appear and become nonexistent entirely to the naked eye. Just as if physiological response could run commands, he found him subconsciously and instantaneously moving forward and... hugging her?

Through the ridiculously agape space between the bars, he found himself relieving a small portion of what he only knew as _hurt_ for a brief moment by putting his arms around her back and his face deep in her shoulder. All of a sudden, he had to admit that this started to make him feel sleepy again, until it became different when after her short phase of shock was over, Roll responded in mimicking the same pattern. Slowly but surely, Bass felt her arms go around his back and a chin on his shoulder. In the very same time that happened, Bass felt so confused with the near identical questions over and over again. Why did he do this? Why does this matter to him? Why did the second time she wrapped him up contrast so greatly in comparison with the first one? The reason why: he really cared. But why did he even do that much to think of her?

His eyes started messing with him. His eyes were closed, yet he could feel them blur. He could feel that _hurt_ starting up behind his corneas. As much as feelings were going against him, at the same time he wanted to stay just a little longer at least in that position before either had a need to stop it. Why did emotions have to be so conflicting and complicated?

Then a thought. A thought came up in him that he- No, this is one that he immediately wishes would die out like a distinguished flame on a candle. This thought, this sort of thought is not the kind he ever wanted to think about. Not only was it just not a topic he focused much appreciation on, but it's also not the one he'd ever want right now. It wasn't anything displeasing, it just wasn't any line of characters in a sentence that Bass would prefer to think a lot.

But that's to be put aside. Bass can easily agree with himself that's a feeling he wants to bury for a long, long time.

He instantly tried to let go, but he hated all notions of wanting to stop the embrace he gave her(and he couldn't say more regarding her returning arms). He had to do everything to show himself that dream held no special meaning.

With the seemingly slowest process of ever halting a hug, which was most likely just a few seconds, he quickly moved back into a more confident position. Thinking more on all the flashy buttons and monitors of the structure they're in, the hilariously weird gears that grind and turn throughout its inner workings, and all of the other parts that flashed through Bass' mind about what he knew in the building. Not all held any significant information in context of the plan they had, but it came as his natural consideration of said plan when he went through it one last time before he knew he would be able to execute it soon. This felt so strange too. It was usually Mega Man's thing to be running away from something like this, Bass was the one this time hitting hightail out of this one out of many others of Wily's complexes. It also felt strange for never doing this type of objective before. Escaping, and not only escaping, but escorting and avoiding the most frightening person he knew: Dr. Albert Wily.

That aside, Bass knows he needs to get things moving in place for this to work as intended; hopefully that theory Circuitry Man and Flora Man said in his most recent dream with him was correct. More importantly, hopefully he can explain the theory to Roll if it actually works.

"So... I think you already know what we need to do if we both want to survive someone like him." Bass began scratching the back of his neck trying to think of a way to say, 'alright, you remember the plan,' but it refused to came out of him that easily.

"Yeah," Roll stepped a single foot out of the cell bars, "I know what you mean."

Bass mentally tried patching what holes he could think of in any variation of security from Wily as he scanned the plan one more time whilst still trying to figure out how in the world his master went through the efforts of putting up cells and management for any possible prisoners, and yet still messed up with the spacing between the bars.

"-the fuck was that?"

But that question could wait. The more important one right now is what Bass had to ask aloud, what was that?

"Hm? Wait, you heard footsteps too?"

Now the panic alarms were really starting to settle in with Bass having confirmation he wasn't the only one who had heard that. It was somewhat distant, probably only detectable because it was usually so quiet. But that means two things: one, it's still relatively close enough to be heard, and two, said source could have possibly detected the sounds they made too...

Bass instinctively put his finger up to his lips though he figures it might be too obvious to her even if she was the last one to say something. Trying to make his voice low enough to talk in just about, if not less than, a whisper, he squeaks, "don't worry; I'll go see who that was." Though just thinking about it and the possibility of doing the plan so soon already, even if it was meant to happen today or tomorrow, it still feels weird reminding himself of those two opposing body types and body colors of one yellow and the other purple that came up with said plan.

Roll was patient about it and responded with a head nod, but her face told a very different story. It looked like she knew what would occur should the unidentified third party be a certain Dr. Albert Wily. If that's the case, then it serves them good for being prepared.

Bass began mimicking the same tip toes he did on Roll's first night with them just in case the unknown figure was still far enough to not see the cell room's door, including who would soon exit that door. By the love of the Lord did he hope the door's noise wouldn't be heard by the same outsider.

One step, two step, three step, four. One side of the door slides to the left and the other slides to the right, only to slide the opposing directions back into each other again into a close. Now that was easy, but the bitty details were still just as difficult to construct. When would the figure arise around the corner if they should? In one second? In two? Never as it goes into another way and dissipates? Well the last option seemed obsolete as the click-clacks on the floor didn't go away. Some things obviously had to be done before one's brain could agree on the decision itself, that's what he's learned with his previous obsession of combat throughout his life. But this had a very different setting and theme to it. Stealth? As little as there was in it, that was still only something Bass heard about from one of Mega Man's games that he mentioned.

Maybe it couldn't be best described as stealth, but it was still weird trying to guess how to keep things within the needed parameters of the plan through minor incognito features. Afterall, falling asleep and waking up in Roll's cell as Dr. Wily could possibly be around the corner was definitely not part of the plan.

Though it had only been a small amount of time, Bass needed to move and stop standing where he was if he wanted to minimalize any risk potential. He decided it would make the most sense to move away from the source and gradually move back to it should it be who they suspect. He could easily use this to 'accidentally' bump into them and, should it be Wily, explain that he was wanting to check on her condition and-

No, that would be too contradictory with what previously happened the other day between him and his old man... Maybe he could take this as an opportunity to surprise attack him and take Roll as he sets the first part of the plan-

No, that sounded too impossible to do and succeed very well with someone like Wily. Maybe...

Damn, as much as he didn't like the sound of using this idea, this was something he would have to do on the spot, but he did believe that it should at least start with not being right in front of the door.

With the force of his heel, he faced the right of him where he began walking. Now while he needed to start what he wanted with an idea on the spot, why did he choose to go in the direction of where the sound grew louder?

If he could, he would mutter little curses to himself, but the other individual stood too close to need to hear that from him, so all he could do was think them to himself in his head.

If that was who they thought it was... if that was who they thought it was behind that corner... which one of themselves could predict the outcome? Even with plans, even with kept knowledge, it was still just as scary as before to think of not only forcibly leaving the underwater facility they were in, but to do this to his own maker, Wily or not, and leaving whatever he had to see of him or say to him. Not a fun question to find the answer to.

Bass, feeling like he was in a fight or flight response, took all guts that he had in him to make the simplest movement of peeking into the unknown. As he looked, it turned out their theory was correct. The uninvited guest was walking, then stopped. "Bass? What are you doing here? And at this moment of all times? Wouldn't you be typically doing your morning routine?"

The big wave of emotion that hit Bass was hard, but he had to focus on this until he can even continue to ponder on that. He had to go back to his old ways. "Old fart, you know by now I like to add stuff because I get tired of doing my routines sometimes."

This sentence gave Dr. Wily quite the raised eyebrow. "Now there's the Bass I knew. What the hell was that yesterday? Did you think you could say that and have it never be brought up again? Like some happily-ever-after thing was going to change how I viewed a certain object or concept because you felt like you were the hero of a story or something?"

Bass sensed the small blow, but couldn't really say anything reasonable in response except for a one-word phrase in a cold, unprocessed tone. "Sorry."

"Sorry?" Bass knew where this was going. "Bass, I said that I wished I was somewhere else, and I partially said that because I knew that I take full responsibility of who you are as yourself and as an individual. I felt like I made you too good with your programming because even your functions that represented hormones seemed to be working too well like an actual person. You acted rebellious, and I guess you always were, but in yesterday's light it was nothing like I expected from your kind of goal and mindset. You acted like some kid who's gotten into that time of his life when he questions everything because he's so new to those certain emotions and hormones entering his system and, in all honesty, screwing it up pretty bad for the time being because then it completely changes them, whether that's for the better or the worse."

At the pause, Bass wasn't too sure whether to speak up or not. "Are you trying to say you didn't like what I said?"

"Of course! You put me in a position where I to choose whether to tell you what was wrong with my words or punch you. You used to think and get in debates about how to do this and how to do that with logic and reason, but to hear you say anything about wanting to be like Light? You were maybe the very last person I imagined hearing that from with what I knew about you."

Bass had the same feeling at the pause. At least he had more confidence to say something in the middle of Wily yelling at him unlike he did in the past. "I didn't realize it would hurt you that much."

"What? Bass, did you just meet me yester-fucking-day morning? You know I don't like anyone like Light. Besides emotions and feelings, I don't know who told you that I'm some monster, or even if it was Roll who told you that since this had just occurred recently, but I'm not. I just do things by the way they should be. Have you seen how our-" Dr. Wily had to fake-cough and excuse himself on his wording, "apologies, 'my' ancestors would have done to disobedient people like you who speak out against them? They followed the law of eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth and more. They punished their enemies and dealt with them reasonably like they should. I can't see Light taking anything as seriously as that like he should. He'd be too huggy and lovey with everything he sees to think about hurting them or punishing them. I'll say it, anyone can and is allowed to think for themselves in the way they want, but the way Thomas thinks is wrong. Just straight up wrong. That's why I didn't like him. That's why I didn't appreciate what he had to say when my interests were just a little different from his! Do you see what I'm saying now? Or do I have to repeat myself?"

There was something that he always did. Bass could recall multiple instances where a subject in any argument or conversation suddenly took the strangest of turns and he couldn't remember how it got there, but he knew it related in some way or another. But he didn't have time for this. He just wanted to get all of this over with so he didn't have to think as much as he had recently.

"Besides, what were you even doing- You know what, I don't care," Dr. Wily put his hands up and began walking, possibly just a little more aggressively, towards the corner Bass just came from, "just follow where I'm going."

As usual, the doctor looked agitated, but with the small key notes in his pace, it was more obvious that he wasn't agitated, he was very pissed off.

Going back to acting like he had no other ideas in his mind, Bass did as told and walked with him in suit to the turn-around at the end of the corner, and starting to slow down lightly after marking past a single door just a few down to theirs truly.

It was just then that Bass realized that he did not see for himself if Roll went back in her actual cell should Bass come back with an accompaniment by his side.

Wherever he was on the religious terms or beliefs in a higher being, he still hoped to his core that the approaching footsteps would have caught to her, that the yelling outside was noticed, just that something compelled her to go back into her cell door. Whether or not there were many logical reasons why she would do so automatically anyways, anything that wasn't set in stone had the biggest risk for being a gamble and the slightest screw-up could put them in the highest jeopardy thinkable with Wily being around. One notice that something was up and they'd be done for.

At last, the door opened and Bass could let out a sigh of relief(if he could without being suspicious). Roll was in her cell. That arguing(one-side conversation) must have been what got her to do it.

Regardless, it was still tough to figure out how this would all play out. Anything; a wrong step, a trip, and it's over.

And now with Wily actually in here, it was no longer anywhere near fun and games and in-head scenarios. This was it.

It was also so odd. Movies make it seem so easy for something like this. The good guy has to do a thing and then he does the thing, but it's nowhere close to that is it? He can't just do it, he has to find the courage. But that courage was hard to find, especially since they knew why he was in there.

"Well Bass," he approached the bars inside the room, "I think I finally got down what I want for her. Doesn't look like Light's damn Mega Man is coming here anytime soon as far as I know... Strike three, they're out!" Quickly unlocking it, the cage was set open. Roll wore the same expression of uncertainty as he would have expected, but that face turned a bit more frightened to a short degree when Wily was carefully eyeballing her as he proceeded to move her just to ensure that she didn't try to do anything(even being in the room itself he didn't realize just how wide the spaces between his own bars were).

Doing the same routine as the last two when getting them set up, he had her hands behind her back with a restraint. Bass knowing about the existence of this, he swore he would need to punch something if this short few-days experience gave her PTSD, because he knew those restraints were going to bring back some memories from earlier. Not just the kicking and screaming, but before that, when she had to sit down and watch... and watch... Good god Bass couldn't feel more sorry just by thinking on it.

"And..." he began his final scan to make sure nothing was amiss, "you know what we have to do next. I'd personally like you to transport her, but don't think you can do whatever the hell you want, I'll be following you this time, because I know this started around the time she got here, ever since you had to move her, there were certain things about you that weren't quite the same and now I feel like I'm gonna have to supervise you for a while to figure out what is exactly going on."

His problem with this was finding that courage he needed. All weighed and outweighed things didn't help any matter of theirs with progressing in what they needed to do.

"Bass? Whatcha' standing there for? Come on. You heard me."

Although, this was still very important to him. He _knew_ he wanted to do this, it was just so hard. Everything in his entire system was wanting to do so, but felt too afraid, so it just sat like a dead organism unable to make further decisions about itself.

"Goddamn it Bass. I don't truly understand what this is all about, but at least respond."

That courage couldn't come from anywhere. He had a lot of experience in quick-thinking situations, but nothing like this. He supposed just like a minute ago, this was another decision that couldn't completely done with the most well-balanced thinking, it just had to be done; if this had to be done to get to where he wanted to be, then he was okay with that. He didn't just hate Wily, he hated Wily for what he had him participate in, and the fact that after all of this Roll was still holding up in some miraculous way. But that had to be held by a thread at that point. Both he and Roll needed to do this for the better sake of themselves, and that was right now. Right now... right now...

"Bass?"

Right now...

"Baaaass?"

He had to do it right now.

"Bass, if you're up to something, it's not going to-"

And he did it, kind of. He hurled over a large step to grab a hold of Roll by the bicep with just enough force behind it to obtain her from the doctor's hands in less than a second. By the time that second was up, he was by the door before getting the forceful grab of Dr. Wily's hands by his collar, which wasn't only impressive that he could grab that place in such a brief period of time, but it also hurt quite the amount.

"What the hell are you doing!? Bass, you're acting completely different from your usual self like someone just did a switcheroo! Has this been something you've been hiding for a long time? It's obvious from what you've said and other hints that this is extremely, and I mean, extremely recent, but this almost doesn't make any sense! Bass, has it actually been longer?"

Whatever Wily's point was, he wasn't too focused. All he knew to do was to keep going without turning back on the plan they had. This wasn't just for himself, Bass, not just for himself in any close degree.

Thankfully with just lucky factors, including his many kilograms, his strength, and Wily's somewhat old age, a thrust forward that would have given him whiplash if he could was able to break free of the doctor's sweating hands.

"Bass? Bass?!"

His voice was heard, but by the time Wily shouted his name one last time before screaming his loudest possible profanity, neither Bass nor Roll could see him after passing up by the other hall where Bass knew they needed to go. They had to move fast for everything to be set in their corresponding courses, so for the time being, and for Roll's sake, just in case anything popped up as they should have for a scenario such as this, Bass thought he could do something he's never quite done before.

Still in the cell room, Wily leaned over the glow of his watch to announce a command of some kind to somewhere in the facility. Wherever it was being communicated and being interpreted was only as much as the doctor himself knew. For precaution, not even the select few who used to stand out to Wily, Bass included, did not know all the ins-and-outs of his emergency protective protocols in his facility for similar or exact situations as this, but Bass could at least figure that Wily wasn't stupid enough to start out guns blazing since that left no actual strategy to really help the doctor in this type of event depending on just what said protocol was.

In his attempt to speed things up and have everything go to plan, Bass slowed down for a step or two, without any communication or warning, and swooped up Roll in Bass' first ever and hopefully not uncomfortable attempt of holding a person bridal style. Of course Roll had a bit of shock, completely evident from the sound from her voice box, but with everything that's happened over these past, what? Three? Four days, should she expect anything less odd than an action like this one?

Just as expected, little goons had swung in to try to stop them with what they were doing, but there wasn't much time to fight. This plan was entirely about speed. Speed was the key.

There wasn't much to be said about Bass putting up a fight. He did, just not much with his buster like he typically would. Anything he didn't go around or charge into definitely got at least one scratch on him, but that didn't matter. As long as Wily didn't pull some sort of crazy one-eighty with his defenses(if that's even the right word to use at this point), the damage could be compensated later with just having to get through a short distance to where they needed to go for the next step of the plan.

Now this was going to be the interesting part; the part of the plan he had to lie to Roll about. If there was anything as weird as the term itself, it was exactly this, and Bass only went along with it because how was he supposed to not accept this part of the plan without also currently accepting the bizarreness of having robot master "souls" enter his dreams? He didn't like having to lie about this part, but he had to make something up in placement of the actuality of what was to occur, or how else would she go along with it? Not without being in his footsteps could she. And Bass could only guess as to why Circuitry Man and Flora Man didn't give him a lie to say beforehand, but he was smart enough to know not to directly say it to her.

He hated gambles like that; where all it was was a risk due to poor planning or unpredictability, but this part was all the biggest risk and unpredictable. If this little theory of Circuitry and Flora's didn't go dead-on what they thought it would do, they would be in too much trouble.

Such an odd thing to try explaining too. Bass didn't even know how he would try going over the details with Roll later.

Although only after the longest few seconds of their lives in running through the halls did Bass perk up a small smile knowing that this next (hopefully successful)part was about to begin.

It wasn't until Bass looked down that he realized Roll had been hiding her face for a short while. Can't blame her. After all with everything going on around her this was something hard to view and spectate when said spectator was in the middle of the action itself.

Bass, not stopping for a moment, spoke up to catch Roll's attention, "hey!" She opened her eyelids and turned up to face him. "We're going to need you for this, I'm going to have to let you down soon."

Roll, remembering the next course that Bass told her about tried to put on a more serious look on her features and nodded in acknowledgement of his statement. What she was told was much more than a white lie, but he was nowhere near joking about needing her for this part of their plan.

Hoping for the love of God once again that there were no unchecked crevices in this part of what they needed to accomplish, Bass went through, constantly searching for what place they needed. Now if there was ever such a thing as luck, they hit the jackpot of it. Around one more corner, Bass could find himself meeting up with just who he intended to find: the current bodies of Circuitry Man and Flora Man. The original idea had many hypotheses, and this second one said that if Bass was fast enough, he could make it before they showed up to make sure he got them by the time they arrived, and it was barely wrong. The first one was that following the architecture of this underwater, travelling, submarine-like fortress, for an emergency situation like this to occur, robots like Circuitry Man and Flora Man who needed to be protected out of not being properly experienced for this kind of event would be told to go into a place of hiding such as their rooms. Everyone alike the robot masters and Bass all had their own rooms after all in the large fortresses. However, according to this architecture, their rooms go past this very specific location of the fortress in question in most areas where the embodied impostors would be for training by Dr. Wily. The location of where they had been originally executed.

As for the third hypothesis...

"Roll!" Bass shouted as he began putting her back to her feet again. When she saw the two before them, she appeared puzzled. With the little amount Bass said for this part, she didn't quite understand why they were involved.

"Hm? Wait, what's happening here?" All Bass said for his ridiculous lie was that he would need her help to obtain a couple of things before they could truly get out. These were certainly not _things_.

The new owner of Circuitry Man's body was just as perplexed. "Bass? Shit!" He began putting his palms out to do whatever weapon he had at his disposal from his rubbery hands that Light built in him.

Bass ran over to one important part of the room that was needed to complete this little jigsaw. That important piece was a lever. "Roll! Shove Flora Man into that!" He pointed to the one pair of things he wished he didn't have to explicitly bring up as Roll followed that finger's direction and saw the strange electric chair objects. He hated this. Bass knew that if nothing in the past couple of days was traumatic to her that this was. He hated everything in it. Having to point it out to having to have Roll think about pushing them in one more time, as much as it needed to be done he also hated how much this sort of thing could put on a single individual.

As expected, her eyes immediately flared up. Within good reason. Again, as much as it's said, Bass couldn't take how much he hated this idea to do. "What?! But why?"

With his quick-to-respond instinct that there was absolutely no time to lose in this kind of thing, especially when one moment had to be done in exactly one moment as here, Bass pulled the lever and quickly said back, "just do it! I'll get Circuitry Man because he's heavier. They're already onto you, do it!"

And they were, with intentions known they started hurrying for getting the two of them before Bass ran into Circuitry Man, putting them at a greater disadvantage while Roll was able to push Flora Man's weight. Even though they weren't strapped, the wires on the device that sent the commands out to terminate all systems and functions inside were still lethal enough without any other needed restrictions for immobilizing them unless they wanted to just ensure an extra measure.

The third hypothesis was that with certain conditions left unchecked, done by Bass' work in the P.C.C.R, Circuitry Man and Flora Man would be able to go into Wily's things further, including lights, miscellaneous gizmos... and hopefully even something as strange as an instrument of death.

Not that it made matters much better to the naked eye. It seemed horrendously awful at first, but after the stage of seeing their near reenactment of their deaths, it brought what they hoped would become of the fourth hypothesis.

Seeing a small Roll almost in tears from everything piling up more and more on her, she gained a new shocked face after a few seconds when the eyes of the two dead became the first signal of rejolting life again.

The fourth hypothesis was the idea that through the same wires of the electric-chair devices, Circuitry Man and Flora Man could hopefully, by the luckiest possible outcome, get to access their newly empty husks and reinstall themselves. Just the must outrageous theory of all the hypotheses but thank whoever's above for it showing signs of working.

Though the more it shows those signs of working, the less better the outcome would be compared to a fake-out death in a movie. All Roll could do as her two brothers started moving again was stand, stutter, and slowly try to get out of shock to backtrack out of her physical position. As for her brothers, almost immediately, they were twisting their heads around to crack their necks, flexing their fingers to return feeling, squinting, and et cetera before Circuitry Man was finally able to be the first one of the two to speak up to her as she started her procedure of moving back. "Hey there!"

Roll jumped and started darting the opposite direction as one of them began going for her, but that stopped soon after her back was met with an embrace by a set of two very large yellow arms. "Roll? God damn I miss you so much!" Roll just got a bit more hyper from coming to know that behind her was actually Circuitry Man this time. But it couldn't last long.

Bass had to get it back on track for a second. "Come on, stop scaring her." By the time the giant had let go, Bass went to say a sentence or two to her. "Roll, I know this is weird, but we'll do our best to explain later. Right now," he got to walking out of the room and to their next trajectory, "we got to stay laser-focused on hauling ass!"

Although in terms of their next trajectory... It wasn't exactly there. At least in typical logic, it was not there, but rather it was like he looked into a blank room. It was almost the equivalent of staring at a dark grey image used for mystery in the background of a painting or drawing. Wait, did he just skip where his arm was? He saw his arm in front of him. His arm was right behind him from his view, right? Why was such a minor detail different? However, on a different topic, where did the room go? The artificial and much more ominous sightings of corridors, flashing red alarms, and enemies were all replaced by the new vision of grass and even... a familiar blue and white home? The basic ending of the escape plan was to go to Dr. Light's home, Bass agreeing to come with, but how did they already get to that point? Now the distance between him and the door were different, and speaking of which, when did the door open? He didn't see Dr. Light in the doorway entering into the house, but he knew he was there regardless, and Bass, he was kneeling, speaking, and one of the last sights he saw along with other haphazardly construed quick flashes of stranger visions... was Roll about to fall out of his arms just before he did the same.

The first vision he saw that made sense due to coherently going by the laws of physics again was the opening of his eyelids. Right before he had the chance to ask himself when he fell asleep, he saw the familiar environment around him. The wall to the right, the window and drapes on said wall, the bookshelf with whatever authors Bass didn't really care about, the neatly organized top of the dresser with as little knit knacks cluttering it as possible. This was the Light household, or more specifically where, the room he spent his time in during each trip that Bass had to stay over here with them for whatever reason there was at the time.

He's heard somewhere before that having huge stress or anxiety could cause weird and intense nightmares. That was guaranteed as one of them. Just the same as the other crazy dream he had the other night, one of the last things his eyes saw within it was a sight related to Roll. As for where he was... what happened here? Piecing together the pieces in Bass' head, he realized it. He collapsed again. Was this just becoming a run-on joke for his life or something? Regardless, he remembers it now. If a picture has a thousand words, every single frame of motion and non-motion definitely had them earlier, but with everything going on there was little time to truly look at the bigger picture rather than take a quick glance at everything in the museum like they did. Haul ass? They did. They hauled and hauled until they couldn't anymore. Bass didn't know about how it was on the part of Circuitry Man, Flora Man, or Roll, but he knew he hauled to the point of tuckering himself out again. It was clear in his head: after his 'haul ass' comment to get themselves going and try to stay on an advantage over Wily, they evaded security enough to grab an escape pod in Wily's submarine whatchamacallit to get to the surface. It took a bit of time, navigation, and maybe just a little bit of trouble from Wily's other bots to get to land, but they got to it. Finally were they able to teleport, and even though Roll didn't have a teleport function, she was still able to be taken by Bass, who insisted on being the one to bring her in the teleportation process. Sure, they could have just probably went into Light's home, but that would have fishy and just a tiny bit more hard to teleport into, so they teleported roughly outside his home instead. Bass remembered that with this having the least to worry about in terms of Wily, he began to let his guard down and that was when he really started to notice how much that little escort took out of him.

That's right, as he was walking, he began slowing down and the other two asked if he really wanted to still carry her, Roll also asking since she wasn't in any visible range of danger anymore, but Bass just wanted to be sure. In somewhere between half a minute to a minute of walking, or at least for Bass it was that long, that was when they got to the door. Inside he heard something about Dr. Light talking with Mega Man in his usual serious tone that he was used to for when they had to do stuff with King and a couple of other things. By context Bass could tell it was about how they were on to the idea that with the difficulty of finding Wily's current collection of robot masters, the focus was most likely on the relation of capturing Roll and two of her somewhat new brothers and that they would need to defeat all eight soon or else they would risk more on whatever Wily was wanting to do with them, but couldn't track Wily's fortress without defeating said robot masters due to the relevance that the eight defeated ones could give a clue and that tracking Wily too soon could bring out another plan that Wily had should they find him before his robot masters' destruction. He had to give them credit. They were pretty spot on.

He knocked on their door before anything could happen with Mega Man going anywhere. That Blue Bomber needed to see this too. With a pause, most likely out of curiosity and confusion, they went ahead and opened the front door unaware of just how much more strange the next piece of information could be for them. Probably the last thing they expected was for Bass to do half the job for them and come up with the damsel in distress while saying something that came from his heart, but sounded a little too poetic to him after he heard what he said. Bass remembered saying, "Dr. Light! Please, I don't want to work for Wily anymore. Put me in the deepest, darkest place you have if you want to, I just don't want to do anything with him anymore." Those were his last words before his arms grew weak and the poor little Roll in them nearly hit the ground just as hard as he did.

God damn it. He never actually said or thought anything about this, but he sort of mutually agreed with himself that he would stop doing that. Let alone within the same twenty-four hours.

Now what happened while he got his unscheduled beauty sleep? Most likely that Mega Man was out tracking and beating the next of Wily's DWNs while Light helped with whatever repairs were at all needed at the time before setting him off to resting in a more comfortable place than the front door entrance, also known as a bed. What could they be doing now though? It was obviously just about what would typically be bedtime as made known by the window, but what about the time? There was a bedside table next to his left that had a digital alarm clock on it. It was about 8:30 PM. Being in a place with literally no access to natural lighting the past few days and longer counting how long Wily had had his current fortress, Bass had to remind himself for a brief second that the lights turning off wasn't the only thing that let you know when night had come without looking at a watch or clock. The specific time that it was though, it was likely that some were still up and about. Hopefully Light could at least have some free time to see what he says about all of this. What were their reactions to him bringing back Roll? How did Circuitry Man and Flora Man even explain what happened over there? They didn't even know about their deaths at all, so what could they exactly say to begin with anyways?

Big thinking could be put aside for the time being, he had to get to them and then use that mindset to try explaining what he could with them. Could they be expecting him? Maybe not quite yet since he was pretty knocked out earlier from some of the most anxiety and stress caused exhaustion that he'd ever had. He had to go now though. He was kind of looking forward to bravely trying to tell them what happened more than he was when he had to stand on his tippy toes all the way through getting out of Wily's base, so it was easier for him to start his track onto finding them. He got out of his bed, not really bothering to make it neat since he would likely be in it again soon in an hour or two. He opened the door, welcoming himself to more of the foreign yet familiar environment of Light's house. The hall may have been pitch dark, having no visible lights on for him to use unless he decided to flip a switch, but that wording wasn't exactly the most pleasant things for himself to think of at the time, instead he focused on the light at the end of the rather short hallway. The light that he remembered leading to the kitchen. If anyone was still awake he knew it was absolutely there for sure.

With the kind of thing that Mega Man had going on, Bass figured that he would maybe be sleeping by then and getting up at a point pretty early in the following morning ready to kick some more robot butt. Roll might still be up, but if Bass had to guess he also figured something of the same sleeping schedule so that she could help her brother in anyway she could before he left, and Bass had no idea what Circuitry or Flora Man would be doing for any part of the day and night. Dr. Light could be up doing some research or whatever his normal "day job" would be, so he might be the reason behind that kitchen light being on.

Bass walked through the hall as not-so-bad and honestly pleasant memories of little things like music played through his head just crystal clear enough to be ready to audition for those moments' rehearsals at anytime if he had to. The carpet feeling was nice. He saw the little divider that he never really knew any name of what it was called; all he knew was that it bordered where the carpet stopped for the tiling in the kitchen, and he knew he needed to be about a foot or two away from the division to see clearly into the kitchen.

Walking towards where that kitchen was, Bass had to stop himself and understand for a second what was happening. He just betrayed his own creator and started making paces forward like he was supposed to be the good guy in a story settling down for the end of their journey. What exactly could happen to everything after this? This wasn't just normal, rebellious intent that can pop up in one's head from time to time. This was the definition of choosing a separate path in life. He may have had a quarrel go on inside of him that led to not liking some of what Wily partly had him help with, but how was he to say that it was the perfect choice to not have a stable sense of who he can appreciate as his creator? If he doesn't even stand the likes of him, the one who both literally and figuratively made him, how can he keep a sense of self without being on sandy foundations? Having no appreciated creator is the same as having no memory. No memory to track back to and make himself from. What could he make himself from if he did not like what did create him? Let alone be so far from showing that appreciation that he had the largest distance covered from where he could ever even be near the physical presence of the non-bearded doctor he, quote-unquote, grew up with. He wasn't like Light. Light would be more than happy to see one of his own runaway creations like Proto Man come back with open arms just the same as the story of the Prodigal Son. Wily wasn't like that. His skull was a lot harder to crack than that. If someone told him to fuck off, then he took it as their message said, no matter who that might have been from. In Wily's own words, he told him that what he said out loud was the biggest middle finger he'd ever given him, wasn't it? He said that with no sense of respect for his own creator, and while he liked Light's way of doing things better, what did that say to everything that happened before it? His mind tended to falter to taking a bigger liking towards Light recently, but his instincts were saying something different. What else was it that was making him act the way he was, suddenly beginning to suffer in both silence and boisterousness as to who he wanted to head down the path of more? Hell, even his hero analogy was maybe right. There was another thing that came to mind earlier, and he hopes to the heavens that it wasn't right. He swears that assumption couldn't be right. The same one he hoped would extinguish just as fast as it hit him, but it wasn't going away. If anything, he felt the candle for the idea might have grown a slightly larger flame since then, as he started to accept-

Nope! That wasn't it. He didn't want that to be it and no one involved needed that to be it. He just needed a much better explanation for why everything has gone both South and North just recently for him. But for now, that needed to progress with going to see Light.

Finally bringing his thoughts back into the real world, Bass started moving his steps again. Upon a split second before coming into view of what was happening in the kitchen, he heard a small sound of clatter. Like... silverware? Bass walked one more step and upon having everything come into view fully, he realized they were all there, having... dinner? The reason why they had dinner so late was a little weird, but then Bass came to think that considering the fact that he had came, the time it took before Mega Man could get back home after dealing with a DWN, the time it took for Dr. Light to do what he could with Bass, and however much stuff Circuitry Man, Flora Man, and Roll together could explain what happened to Dr. Light, it made perfect sense that they would be having dinner so late. What was it anyways? He saw two bowls in front of each one: one was a salad, and what was the other one? Looked like soup. Making soup could very well be another reason why they were eating pretty late.

Even though he saw Auto, Light, Rock, Circuitry Man, Flora Man, and even Rush and Tango could be seen curled up in their pet beds napping in the corner of the nearby family room, the one that got the most immediate attention was Roll. She sat in her chair just the same as everybody, and Bass knew that typically the Light family was easy at living in comfortable silence with each other, but this obviously felt a little bit more different. Many moons ago, Bass wouldn't have noticed, but now learning to pick up on all the little social cues, he could see where the Light family had turned from seeming as wholesome as before. In the past when they ate, even if there was the foggiest mist in the room, he could tell that they had the most cheerful attitude, and now, it just wasn't like that. From just the minor focus on how they used their silverware, the frequency of just how much they may or may not have put food in their mouth and other small table manners, to even the tiniest degree shorter of an end on Light's smile, it just didn't feel quite the same as when Bass was there at their dinner table a long time ago. It made sense. There were matters to discuss about everything that had happened and explaining how they got to where they were. But poor Roll. She was there at the table with them, turning her spoon all along the near edges of her soup bowl, swirling small little designs in her broth for her own amusement. But her looks weren't too disruptive to appearing as everyday normal Roll. Her eyelids were drooped slightly, lips in a pout, and all else needed to make a typical sad face. Yet she didn't even look too down in the dumps. After everything she's seen, from the death and reincarnation of her brothers, to seeing Bass go through a couple of small mental breakdowns, to even just the fast-pacing of everything that happened in their escape plan, how did she have the ability to move and coordinate herself as just having a bad day? How _could_ she just look slumped in her chair without being mentally insane enough to the point of being strapped in a jacket for a room full of other crazies? Bass might have been a little jealous, but otherwise, holy Moses! Just _how_ in the _world_ did she do it? Was seeing Dr. Light and them really that helpful? As far as Bass knew, that wasn't how most mindsets worked, but not Roll. She's apparently not someone one should mess around with. She was the real hero of whatever kind of thing Bass went through for her to be like this.

Another step and Dr. Light saw where Bass was finally. Catching his attention, his eyes rose half an inch, he motioned to put his spoon down and get up with his professional manner to properly greet the Special Wily Number. "Oh! Bass!" As he moved forward with that commonly seen friendly grin of his, he put his hand on Bass' shoulder and put his other palm towards the direction of the empty seat, "goodness, you looked like you took quite the beating there earlier, didn't you? With someone like you I'm not too surprised your body's already up and at 'em." He giggled under his statement. "Soup's been done for a while. Y'might want to have some before it gets cold."

Bass sat in his respective seat, and he wasn't expecting any bit of attention from when he came out of the spare bedroom aside from being a new guest at the dinner table, but he was a little surprised by the wide eyes Rock gave him for a brief second before realizing the kind of face he was making and awkwardly going back to his salad bowl. Circuitry Man and Flora Man, with as little facial features as they were given, managed to give him the kind of expression and stare that felt like they were about to complement him on something. He swore if he could read their minds, especially for Circuitry Man, he would have heard something like, _'ah yeah. Nice going back there!'_ Roll and Auto gave the most normal expressions and tried to remain from the glares with only trying to give acknowledgement unlike the others, but Roll kept a more attentive stare for the short time being that she kept it, keeping her head slightly tilted after the first second of the acknowledgement looks that she gave him like she was trying to focus a bit more on some unfound subject. She kept her head back down to her food around the same time as Auto, but by the time she went back down her face was lifted up just one percent if not more than that previous frown of hers, like her eyes finding this strange unknown subject was a fairly decent enough attention stealer from what was on her mind and put a new idea in the spotlight of her brain.

Bass just remembered that he was a newly seated guest when he turned his head over to Dr. Light by the soup pot. "Hey, do you need any help with that?" Light just responded, "oh no thank you, I only need to do a couple of things here. Besides, you just came in here after a long and needed nap anyways." Bass settled back in his normal position until he made a little connection. _Roll. Soup. Roll. Soup._ "Hey doctor. No offense, but you didn't have Roll cook this after her _just_ coming back here, did ya?"

Light returned a quick reply for him, "oh heavens no!" He set the tongs down back in the larger bowl of salad, "I couldn't do that, that wouldn't do any respect to her." He grabbed both of Bass' bowls in his hands, "I did this earlier once I didn't have anything going on finally."

"Wait," Bass began as Light placed the bowls in front of him, "you did this?"

The doctor just gave his usual sound that Bass could describe as sort of a happy harrumph. "She had to learn her skills from somewhere, didn't she?"

He felt a little confused by that. After all, the fact that robots get information from precoded data made a number of new questions in Bass' mind, but it's not like they also can't learn more from experience the same as humans do, so he couldn't exactly argue. He stared back at Light, thinking back to what all he had to say to him, but the doctor seemed to almost read his mind. As Thomas went back to his own serving, he said, "don't worry. Circuitry and Flora already told me as much as they could. We can do more talking later — let's say tomorrow, to get this all situated out," only to look back at his spoon and make a heavily quieted slurp of soup. They already said stuff about what went on at Wily's? What did they say? They must have mentioned the escape plan because that would explain the look Mega Man gave him when he sat down. Bass was about to approach his steaming bowl, but Roll had her head up concentrated on him again. She had the same face as when she first saw him a minute ago, head tilted and everything, like she was interested in saying something, whatever it was, and just unsure when or how to say it. It was distracting to say the least, and no matter how long he stared into those pupils, she wouldn't budge with whatever the thing was. Only then after thinking consciously about looking at her to try to figure out what was going on, he realized he was staring back probably just as strangely; head tilted, eyes partly squinted. It wasn't like she and him were trying to send messages via telepathy by focusing really, really hard in hopes that it would work, but nonetheless they ended up looking at each other similar to that anyways. Noticing this Bass made sure to keep from continuing his glare by looking down at his soup, but for some reason Roll was still persistent in looking dead-on straight to his face as usual. Still hard to keep from occasional looks out of the corner of his eye in attempt of trying to understand just what Roll was trying to do, Bass moved his hand in decision of what to try first. Grabbing the spoon and putting it in the soup, he felt slightly more calm with the heat of it radiating onto his palm. His mind being put to somewhat rest after focusing on the comfort of the soup's warmth, he hoped that everything he did was worth it and that nothing would be regretted later. Hopefully this would make an even better outcome with this and just a bit more progress. Putting the spoon to his tongue, Bass had to admit, even though he never would have guessed that Light had any chance of experiencing the works of the kitchen, he was a pretty good cook.

* * *

**A/N:**

**Me, a fanfic writer who writes a little bit on and off: It's May, I should be able to finish this chap by the next month.**

**Also me many months later: ... Maybe I should have incorporated some of this in the last chapter :/ Oops...**

**So, this took a lot longer than I thought it would ^_^; My bad for both not thinking about the length through too clearly and also not keeping a schedule for this kind of thing. I don't want it to be my main focus(because I have a life) but DANG this was much more delayed than expected. Thankfully this isn't my job or I would have been fired a long time ago! Now that this is finished, I hope I can get on the last chapter soon enough to at least have it done by the end of this month, but I'll also try to make my small writing sessions a little longer so that I can get more than 200 or so words out of each one(this chap taught me that the hard way). But anyways, even if it's not a very big ficcy, still my bad for not thinking about writing sessions through very thoroughly. I hope y'all guys have been having a noice Summer though. I know I have! I'll see y'all next time in the last chap. Until then, peace! Oh, and real quick reminder: as always, wash dem hands!**

**End of A/N**


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